Journeys Home
by Carlo Santos
Summary: What Carlo and his friends first saw Kirameki most as was the final leg of their journey home to America. This is the story of how they not only came home, but found their hearts' homes.
1. The Night Before

Author's Note: I am only planning this as a one-off venture into non-Sailor Moon fan fiction unless encouraged otherwise by you, the readers. Hope you like it, though…  
Also, let me put the disclaimer out now. I do not own any trademarks or characters related to Tokimeki Memorial, but I do own the characters of Carlo Santos, Olivier Sevin, Hampton Foushee, Josh Earp, Nick DeRose, and Brad Ralston. I'm Carlo, and Olivier, Hampton, Brad, and Josh were my real-life classmates at Reynolds, so this is also something of an alternate-universe story.

Picture this: Four teenagers sitting around in Gap and Brooks Brothers shirts and brands like that with phrases like "it's, like, okay" and "that was absolutely awesome" coming out of their mouths. Looks like some scene in New York or Chicago, right? Wrong. As a matter of fact, wrong side of the world. This was Yokohama, Japan, and we were hanging out over some lemonade in a large, futuristic-looking mall.

"First day back at school tomorrow…" Nick DeRose sighed.  
"No kidding." Brad Ralston said, also sighing.  
We were going through more than just your typical end-of-vacation blues. The four of us—Olivier Sevin, Nick, Brad, and me, Carlo Santos—all had one thing in common other than being classmates. All four of us were Americans with parents who had been called to Japan on lengthy assignments when we were quite young—about three or so. That meant that you could often find us hanging out together discussing sports back home, trying to help each other brush up on our developing Japanese, or else providing a welcome break from that by talking in English. The other thing was that even though the four of us had grown up in Japan, we were still homesick at times and there were numerous instances where we felt out of place.

The cool thing about our shared predicament was that it molded us into a quartet where everyone had everyone else's back. Hard test coming and the teacher's too hard to understand? Study session together in English. One of us broke and having trouble getting home? The rest of us would walk him home. That fact made me even more glad that we would also tackle the last thing standing between us and college back home—Kirameki High School—together.

"I hear Kirameki has some of the best girls in the city period." Nick said, a grin starting to reappear on his face. "Is that true?"  
"I really hope so." Olivier said earnestly. "It would be cool to have someone like that to help get through this."  
"I hear ya." Brad said. "Look at it this way: just three more years starting tomorrow until we get to head back home for college!"  
"I guess that's one way to see it." I said, trying to grin but only managing to make my mouth twitch. "Are you guys actually planning to try and date anyone this year?"  
"Maybe." Olivier replied.  
"Yeah, maybe." Brad chimed in.  
"Perhaps." Nick said. "What about you?"  
"I really don't know." I said. I was (and therefore am) the youngest of the four of us, as I had done some grade-skipping and ended up a year ahead of my peers. So while my friends were 14, I was still just 13. As a result, I was extremely shy when it came to relationships and would rather study than date, something that made my life in Japan more stressful at times.

"Have you even had a female friend ever since you came here?" Olivier asked.  
I suddenly glanced over to a nearby tree where I recognized two names inscribed on it both in Japanese and English—and one was my own. A host of memories suddenly flooded back into me as I recognized the other name and turned back to Olivier.  
"As a matter of fact, yeah." I replied.  
"Really?" Olivier asked, sounding incredulous. "Who was she?"  
"Shiori Fujisaki." I answered. "We met each other during my first year in Japan."  
"No kidding?" Nick asked. Brad was also looking interestedly at me by now.  
"We really became good friends before she had to move out. Her family had to move to Osaka because of business just when my class difficulty was really starting to pick up." I explained. The four of us were also something of "preppies", if you could call it that, especially me, as we had just finished up three years together with flying colors in a particularly demanding class that is roughly the equivalent of honors-level middle school over here. Once or twice, we were even exposed to high school material. Even though it meant we had large expectations placed on us, it also helped take away some of the tension by ensuring that we were rarely picked on or teased because we'd proven ourselves.

"Do you think you'd meet again—before going back home, anyway?" Olivier asked.  
"I really don't know." I said again. "I haven't heard much from her since then. But speaking of romance and Kirameki, I've heard about this legend related to love over there."  
"What is it?" Nick and Brad asked almost simultaneously.  
"Well, they've got this tree out here called the Legend Tree. The story goes that if a girl and a guy say they love each other under that tree on Graduation Day, then their relationship will be blessed and they'll live happily ever after."  
"Wow." Olivier said. "And this is real?"  
"I've heard quite a few who swear by it, now that I remember it." Nick said. "Man, it would be cool to have a girl telling me that she loves me under that tree on Graduation Day." A smile stretched over his face as he looked up somewhat dreamily, and I had no doubt he was imagining it and really liking the idea of it.  
"That would be cool." I said, falling silent for a while as I imagined what it would be like if that guy was me. "I hope it happens to you because I think it's pretty much a long shot that **I'll** be one of those guys getting a confession that day."

"But it's not like you're totally down when Duke just won the national championship." Olivier quipped, looking at me and grinning.  
"You got **that** right." I said fervently, grinning back.  
Oh, and one more thing—the four of us were transplants from North Carolina. That meant that the four of us were especially attuned to the college basketball world, and with Duke—my favorite team **and** one of my preferred colleges—beating Arizona in the national title game at the Metrodome, I had a much-needed morale boost. There were even times where we'd be able to catch a game together on TV or radio, which was another welcome stress buster.  
"I was glad Duke kicked Arizona's butt." Nick said. His favorite team, Michigan State, had been blown out by Arizona in the Final Four, so he had undoubtedly been looking for revenge. The conversation soon shifted, and Shiori Fujisaki was quickly shunted to my mind's sideline as I was all too happy to talk sports rather than relationships.

Little did I know how much it would come hurtling back in the next day…

In the next chapter—"The Epiphany":  
Carlo, Olivier, Brad, and Nick go through **that** first day at Kirameki High. Translation: Enter Shiori, Saki, and company. How will the guys react? In particular, what does Shiori's reappearance drive Carlo to do?

Note dated June 19, 2005: If you are looking for "The Moon, Mercury, and Manchester," click the link on my pen name to get information. 


	2. The Epiphany

Note: The Tokimeki timeline is slightly shifted in this story from the 90s to the 2000s (the storyline begins in 2001, which was the year Nick, Brad, Olivier, and I actually entered high school.)

The next morning, I met the others at a subway station a short walk from Kirameki.  
"You guys ready to get this last obstacle out of the way?" I asked them.  
"You bet." Olivier said.  
"You got that right." Brad said as we slapped hands.  
"Let's rock and roll." Nick finished.

With that, we walked purposefully ahead side by side onto the grounds and past the Legend Tree, turning our fair share of heads with our entrance.  
It wasn't hard for people to see that we were American, because not only did we look different (with the exception of me, since both of my parents are from the Philippines and I therefore have the "yellow" skin color), but we also sported backpacks from such Stateside brands as Jansport and The North Face.

We waved at a few people that we knew as we went through the door. The first thing we did upon getting in was to check the class rosters. Over in Japan, you're placed in a class that you have all your courses with based on your record to date. Luckily for us, the names were posted in both Japanese and English so we knew just who we were up against—or alongside.

"Hey, guys, look at this!" I called. "We're all in Class A!"  
"What?" Olivier asked. Seeing the list with our names on it, he high-fived me. "Oh, yeah! That's cool! Check it out!"  
"Yeah—we really are going to go through all this together!" Brad said.  
"Yeah, Brad, and we're with the big boys—and girls." Nick said, as he was apparently surveying the list in greater detail.  
I bent over again to take in the full picture, and I found my insides feeling as if I'd hit a speed bump on a bike without slowing down.  
"Hey, Shiori's in our class!" I yelled, spotting her name and quickly pointing it out.  
"What?" Nick asked. "Oh, man, what a coincidence!"  
"I agree, man." Olivier said. "How must you be feeling being reunited with the only girl you've been friends with?"  
Before I could answer, Brad said, "Hey, someone's drawing a crowd. Who is that girl?"  
"What?" I asked, turning to see what the commotion was about. What I saw ended up temporarily striking me dumb.

A familiar-looking girl was being surrounded by eight, ten, or maybe even twelve guys all trying to talk to her in Japanese. She had a slender figure, a pretty face, long, straight red hair held in place by a hairband, bright brown eyes, and a smile that put me on the edge.  
"Oh, my God, that's Shiori." I only managed to say it faintly to the others.  
"Oh, my God." Olivier said. "That's her?" He sounded as if he couldn't believe it.  
"Yeah." I said faintly with what voice I could muster, which wasn't much, while nodding as much as I could, which wasn't much either. Not only was Shiori's beauty riveting my eyes to her, but something inside that I had never felt before had been awakened. It was a funny fluttering, stirring sensation that made it impossible for me to suppress a smile at her. Looking to my right, I saw Nick with his mouth hanging open slightly. Soon, though, a businesslike demeanor overtook me again.  
"Okay, guys." I said once she had gone inside the classroom. "Time to go to work."

Well, you know how it goes the first day—not much getting covered except perhaps some math review material. At lunch, just before I sat down, I saw Shiori help up a guy who had slipped before getting a drink that a guy had paid for and left at the cashier by accident and returning it to him.

During lunch, I also found out something even more startling.  
"I heard Shiori moved back here." Brad said. "I've even heard that she's in your neighborhood, Carlo."  
"No way!" I exclaimed.  
"I'm serious! I got the address and house number, and if I'm not mistaken, she moved into the house across the street from you."  
"Oh, boy." Olivier said. "Man, I wish I could have a girl like her living across the street from me."

At the end of the day, I waited for her outside the classroom.  
"Hey. Shiori, could I talk to you for a second?" I asked, crossing my fingers.  
She turned to see who was trying to speak to her in English, and she promptly smiled. "Oh, hello, Carlo!" She said, waving and approaching me with almost no errors in her English. "I can't believe we're in the same class again!"  
"Neither can I." I said earnestly, relieved and glad that her English was terrific.  
"I see you've got some fellow Americans in the class. Are they your friends?" Shiori asked.  
"Oh, yeah." I said, still using that earnest, energetic tone. "They're fellow North Carolinians, too, so we end up covering each other a lot."  
"I'm glad to see it." Shiori said.  
"That certainly doesn't mean I'm not glad to see you again." I said, quickly but carefully choosing my words and grinning.  
"Why, thanks a lot! What a nice thing to say!" Shiori replied.

The same fluttering, stirring feeling that had gotten into me when I had first seen Shiori—a sensation that I had managed to stow away during the day—now came back in full force and then some.  
**What is going on with me?** I thought almost furiously as I got home. I had managed to hold my feelings in during the school day, but I was now bursting at the seams to let them out, which frightened me because I feared falling victim to some temptation or infatuation.  
Once my homework was done, I flipped on ESPN Pacific, which broadcasted in English, hoping to take my mind off Shiori with some sports, which I really liked to follow, talk about with my friends, and write about. As a matter of fact, I had even earned a place as a sportswriter for the Kirameki school paper. It worked—for about five minutes. After that, I found that all I wanted to do was either sit down or pace in silence to think about her.  
I had wanted to abstain from dating until the second year, when I would be the equivalent of a high school junior back in America, so that I didn't get sidetracked too much. The amazing and almost scary thing, though, was that I was thinking about Shiori so much in terms of quantity **and** quality that I was ready to break that rule—and that meant that there was something about this feeling that let me know that this was no crush. This was no infatuation. This was not a case of me just being some groupie. The other thought that was making me ready to break that rule was a horrifying one. That was because another image I couldn't get out of my head was the one with Shiori being surrounded by a flock of guys. I didn't need to be an honors student to know that that meant time was running out.  
**If nothing else, if there ever was an exception to that rule, this is it.** I thought fervently. **I want her with me that bad.**

The next day, after an uneasy rest but some good classes, I managed to find Shiori alone and start to try to make something work.  
"Do you need a walk home?" I asked once we'd said hello and talked about the day's events.  
Shiori grinned back, and I was hopeful for a minute, but then she said, "I don't think that would work today. I've got to meet with Megumi to talk about that social studies assignment."  
"It's okay. I understand." I answered, grinning back. "Good luck."  
"Thanks." She replied.

Thus began a stretch in which I would ask if I could somehow walk her home or otherwise get some time alone with her outside of class every three to four days. Every time, though, I found out that the time was not quite right, and every successive time I heard it was a no-can-do, it was more and more disheartening.  
Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Still nothing.  
By the end of July, the four of us had settled in nicely as we were often getting good and rave reviews from our teachers due to our intelligence, and Olivier, Nick, and Brad had started successfully mingling with our Japanese classmates. Those two factors assured that nobody was trying to pick on us just because of nationality, something I was happy about. The only blip on my social radar other than the guys, though, was Shiori, and it was getting farther away.  
One day, we were crowding around outside our room to see the scores from our first term (Japanese schools run on a trimester system) math exam. As math had seemed to come to me extremely easy at Kirameki, it had become my favorite subject and my strongest one as well. The test hadn't seemed too hard, but I knew that overconfidence could lead to getting a bad grade and seeing everyone else find out about it. My fears, though, were thankfully allayed quickly that day.  
"Hey, Carlo, you won!" Brad pointed out.  
"What?" I asked. I looked over to the right where the top scores were and recognized my name with a 100 beneath it. Directly to the left was Shiori's name with a 97 under it, with Olivier, Nick, and Brad all in the top quarter (Brad was actually third with a 94.)  
"Oh, yeah!" I said, high-fiving the others, taking some congratulations from them and from a couple of Japanese classmates, and forgetting about Shiori—for about ten seconds. I found her stopping briefly beside us and saying, "Congratulations, Carlo! I can't believe you managed to work out that last question!"  
"Thanks." I said, going red slightly. "It wasn't that much, though-just putting it all together and thinking straight."  
"I hope you get to show us how you did that today!" She said.  
"Thanks for the vote of confidence-I just hope I don't mess up!" I said.  
When she left and headed into the room after a last smile, though, I let out a depressed sigh that was too loud to escape my friends' ears.  
"What's going on?" Nick asked in a concerned tone. "Something bothering you, Carlo?"  
"Not exactly." I said. Because I was the smartest of the four of us, I was the closest thing our little quartet had to a leader, so I didn't want it to look like I was demoralized for fear of us all getting distracted. I managed to add, "Hey, we're all in the top 25 percent! Congratulations!"  
Inside, though, I felt like I was on the ropes and as if so much as a flurry of jabs or one good hook would drop me for the count. Even though our crew, if you could call it that at the moment, was riding high with good academic performances, I felt like I was about to crash and burn.  
The clock was almost mercilessly ticking, and I was scared to death of the buzzer sounding on me before all was said and done.

In the next chapter—"Silent Explosions":  
With his hopes of so much as dating Shiori running low, Carlo makes last-ditch efforts to garner an outing with her. Will it work? And if so, how will the evening go? And how will Carlo let the others know what really has been happening to him? And also, who else in his American delegation has taken to a Japanese girl?  
And as the second trimester begins, an event rocks Kirameki and the four Americans... 


	3. Silent Explosions

That afternoon, which happened to be the afternoon of the last day before fall break, I found myself sitting deep in thought alone after class when I spotted Nick heading towards the baseball field with a Kirameki cap and his glove slung over his bat.  
"Hey." I said, raising my hand to acknowledge his presence.  
"Hey, Carlo." Nick said, sounding more upbeat than me for certain.  
Suddenly realizing I had forgot to do something, I sought to straighten that up and asked, "How's baseball? And by the way, sorry I haven't been asking that much."  
"Okay." He said. "Coach says he can see me as our top second baseman in the future."  
"You don't say." I said. "Nice!"  
"Thanks, man." Nick replied. "Are you sure you're okay?"  
"Yeah." I said, admitting, "Just some stuff I've been thinking about."  
"Okay." Nick said, and I was thankful he didn't try to get the details. "Meet you this evening at that ice cream place with Brad and Olivier, okay?"  
"I got it." I answered. 

I felt a little better after that conversation, but that little water-gun-size spurt died away as I watched Shiori come into view alone. I resolved to try asking her yet again.  
**If she says no now, this will be the last time I ask her, I promise,** I thought. **I can't chase her for nothing and have my mind taken off my friends.**  
**Oh, come on, man, you can't give up now if she says no!** Another voice was making itself heard in my head, adding, **For all you know, she's just testing your perserverance!**  
The first voice in my mind replied, **I hope so…**  
With that, I steeled myself and was about to walk her way when I realized she had almost reached me.

"Hi, how's it going?" I asked.  
"Pretty well." Shiori answered. "How about you?"  
"Okay." I replied. Then, forcing myself to eke it out, I said, "I wanted to ask you something. I'm sorry if I'm sounding out of line for asking this, but…"  
"I wouldn't mind." Shiori said, much to my surprise. "I promise."  
I said, "Okay." Taking a breath and crossing my fingers behind my back, I asked,  
"Do you mind if we have a walk and chat this afternoon?"  
A flicker of hope rose up inside me, but I quickly stifled it just in case the worst happened, which I was afraid it would.  
However, Shiori smiled back.  
"Sure." She replied, adding earnestly. "I'd really like that. I'm really sorry I haven't had much time to talk to you, but I hope it makes up for it."  
The broadest grin of the school year so far broke out on my face as I found my spirit launched skyward about a third of the way to cloud nine.  
"Oh, God, thanks a lot!" I said fervently as I continued to enjoy her smile. "I just need to do something quickly inside—just give me about ten minutes or so and I should be out again."  
"All right." Shiori replied. "I'll be right here."

Once inside, I waited until I was confident she was out of sight and earshot then let it out.  
"**Yes!"**  
I felt happy enough to yell it out for the whole block to hear, but I managed to keep it low enough for fear of making Shiori think that all I wanted was a one-night stand. I quickly ran to the nearest men's room to get changed.  
In my bag that day was a change of casual clothes. Whenever school was getting out for a break, you'd see me walking into a men's room at Kirameki in my school uniform and out again in shorts or pants (depending on the weather) and a shirt, plus a jacket in the case of winter break. I don't mind my school uniform, but when I want to seriously let some tension loose, I like to dress casual.

So when I came back out to meet Shiori, I was in gray Gap wind pants, Nike sneakers, and a royal blue collared Brooks Brothers shirt. Before I came out, I said a brief prayer in the stall (my family is Catholic) for a good afternoon with Shiori.  
"Wow, you look nice!" Shiori said when she saw what I had changed into.  
"Thanks." I said. "Do you want to start walking?"  
"Sure." Shiori answered, and she started walking once I was beside her.  
"So what are your plans after graduation?" She asked as we stepped onto the sidewalk.  
"I'm thinking of going to Wake Forest or maybe Duke to study biomedical engineering."  
"Wow, good luck with that!" Shiori replied, looking at me with a bit of admiration—or so I hoped. "So you're thinking of going not just home to the US, but home to your home state?"  
"Absolutely." I said. "I think it was always in my plans to stay in North Carolina for college. At any rate, my parents are going to be back over there after we graduate. What about you?"  
"Well, I'm obviously considering Tokyo U., but there are some American schools that I'm looking at too."  
"Really?" I asked, surprised. "As in Harvard?" Once the subject had come up, I could so easily see Shiori holding her own in the Ivy League.  
"Yeah." She replied. "But that's not the only place I'm considering, because Duke and Stanford are both appealing. But back to you—I really like how you're still trying to go to school where you originally wanted!"  
"Really?" I asked again. "Thanks!"  
"I really wish there were more people like you." Shiori said earnestly, looking at me and smiling.  
I felt as if I had received a slight electric shock at those words. **"I really wish there were more people like you"? ** I thought. **This can't be that fast, can it?**  
"Everybody has to have a dream. **Everybody.**" She finished.  
**Oh, thank God, no, **I thought as the answer to my previous question. Why is it that was actually relieved that it wasn't going that fast, you ask? Well, let's just say I'm not the biggest fan of whirlwind romances. Stories of love at first sight sound cool, just not the ones about people meeting each other and ending up at the altar within the month.  
"I really agree with that." I said honestly.

"Oh, Carlo, look!" Shiori said, pointing ahead.  
I looked and saw what had made her act that way and found that our footsteps had carried us to Central Park. I suddenly felt a jolt as I also suddenly remembered that in the past month, I had dreamed about someday taking her on a date there because we had come there often as kids.  
**What is this, _the_ biggest coincidence of my life?** I thought. **Must be a good sign…**  
"Do you want to keep walking or sit down?" I asked, motioning towards a nearby bench.  
"Let's take a seat." Shiori answered. "I'd like to take it back to old times, when we would come here together."  
I sat down on the bench alongside her and breathed a sigh of comfort.  
"Just wondering…what do you plan to do once you graduate college?" I asked.  
"Well, I'm really thinking of joining a professional orchestra." Shiori answered. "Classical music's my first love when it comes to music, though I don't have many problems with pop. What about you?"  
"Well, I was going to say 'Good luck with that!'" I said.  
"Thanks." Shiori said.  
"But about the sort of music I like…I'm more of a soft rock/pop guy, though I've started to be interested a little more in R&B." I should have also said rap, but I didn't know the difference between rap and R&B at the time. At a recent wedding reception that I had attended, they had played Nelly's Ride Wit Me and I had yelled along with the part of the chorus saying, "Hey! Must be the money!"  
"I can understand that." Shiori said earnestly, making me sigh with relief mentally.  
"What instrument are you playing?" I asked, looking to steer around any potential momentum busters.  
"Violin." She answered. "It's so much fun…when I'm playing it, it's a way of letting go of my stress. Sometimes I try to test out new ways of performing a piece or adapting a popular song to violin, and that always provides a stimulating challenge."  
"Are you thinking of possibly doing that as well when you get older?" I asked.

"Yeah." She answered. "I'd like to continue good classical tradition, but I'd also like to get my peers to push it in new directions."  
"I really hope you're successful with that." I said earnestly.

"Thanks again. Oh, no, I just remembered something!" Shiori exclaimed.  
"What is it?" I asked, slightly startled.  
"I promised my mother I'd be home by 3:45 today!" She said, slightly distressed.  
I looked at my watch: 3:20. Home was about twenty minutes away by the foot-and-subway route that I used.  
"Do you need me to lend you something so you can take the subway back?" I asked.  
"No, I've got enough. Thanks for asking, though." She said, smiling at me and making me grin back.  
Seeing an opening, I asked, "Is it okay if I meet you back here next Saturday at about 4:00?"  
"Sure!" Shiori answered. "I'd definitely like to see you again over fall break—there's so much we couldn't get to today!"  
"Thanks a lot again!" I said. "Don't let me hold you up, okay? Have a good fall break!"  
"Thanks!" Shiori called, waving as she crossed the street and disappeared. "See you next week, Carlo!"

I kept waving until I was sure she was out of sight, and by the time my right arm dropped, a smile was still plastered on my face. I set off for the nearby ice cream parlor where I would meet Nick, Olivier, and Brad quietly singing a sort of victory song—oddly enough, the botched snippet of Frank Sinatra's You Make Me Feel So Young from Down Periscope.  
"I'm gonna feel the way I do today, 'cause you, you nutsy chick, you broad, you make me feel so young…" I sung in an imitation of that botched segment as I reached the door of the ice cream parlor. By the way, the choice of song had nothing to do with what had just happened.  
I walked in and ordered two scoops in a cup—one scoop of chocolate and one scoop of mint chocolate chip. I sat eating it slowly over the next two to three minutes, savoring the events of that afternoon. What was also on my mind was how that time with Shiori had sent me from towards the basement emotionally to a third of the way to cloud nine.  
**Best day I've had in a while, no doubt about that, **I thought with relish.  
At that moment, Nick, Olivier, and Brad walked in, also in casual clothes. "Hey, Carlo, how's it going?"  
"All right." I said, trying to keep myself grounded for the moment. "How about you guys?"  
"Pretty good." Nick said. Once he and the others had bought their ice cream, we started talking about how our day had gone.  
"Well, of course there were the math exam results today, which we all nailed." Olivier said, grinning.  
"Yeah, I know." Brad said, also grinning as he dug into his scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough.  
"That wasn't the only thing we had to smile about today, though, was it?" Nick asked. "I mean, other than the fact that it's now fall break…"

I decided to drop the bomb on my friends right then and there. "To tell you the truth, no."  
"Really?" Brad asked. "What happened?"  
"Do you guys really want to know?" I asked.  
"Yeah, man, go ahead!" Olivier said, nodding.  
I grinned, put another spoonful into my mouth, chewed it for a moment, swallowed it, wiped my mouth, and then grinned.  
"I just got here after a walk with Shiori." I told them.  
My grin broadened as I saw the shocked looks on my friends' faces and heard the gasps before Nick asked, "Alone?"  
"Alone." I replied.  
"No way!" Olivier exclaimed.  
"Oh, man!" Nick said, starting to grin broadly.  
"Whoa!" Brad stammered. "I…just…oh, my God!"  
"Wow, talk about coming out of your shell about dating!" Olivier added, also really starting to grin. Every one of us was smiling by now, me certainly at least partially because of my friends' reactions to the news of what had happened between me and Shiori.  
The time seemed as a good a time as any to explain why I had been down previously, so I explained, "That's why I was down earlier—I've been trying to get something like this with her for the whole first trimester, but it never seemed to be the right time. I'm sorry I let it distract me from you guys."  
"It's okay, Carlo. But it would have been okay if you let us know, man—we'd have understood!" Nick told me.  
"Thanks." I said to him. "Sorry, I didn't know."  
"How was it, by the way?" Olivier asked.  
"Well, let me put it this way: it's the best walk and talk I've had in my life!" I said fervently.  
"Are you going to go out with her again?" Brad asked. "No, wait, that should be '**When** are you going to go out with her again?'"  
I grinned at Brad and then the others. "Next Saturday at Central Park."  
"Oh, boy!" Olivier exclaimed. "That's terrific, Carlo! That means you really had a good first date, because she wants to do it again!"  
"I actually wouldn't call it so much as a date as an impromptu outing." I said frankly.  
"Well, whatever it was, you must have done something right to get her to want to go out with you again! Nice job!" Nick said.  
We then chatted about what Shiori had told me about her plans, not in the least about the possibility of her going to an American college.  
"Wow…Harvard, Stanford, and Duke?" Brad asked. When I nodded, he said, "I guess it shouldn't really be surprising, because she can do **anything** if she sets her mind to it!"  
"Are you thinking about Duke even more because she's thinking about it?" Olivier asked.  
"It's certainly something to think about—going to Duke with Shiori." I said, grinning at the thought and turning my eyes upward as I imagined walking past Duke Chapel through Duke Gardens with Shiori.  
After talking some about baseball, both scholastic and professional (we had all been savoring Ichiro's breakout rookie season with the Mariners and I had had the pleasure of writing about it), we finished our ice cream and left to go our separate ways for the evening.  
Olivier, however, called, "Hey, Carlo, can I speak to you for a minute?"  
"Sure." I replied just after I wished Nick and Brad good fall breaks. "Let's head this way."

I turned us back towards Central Park, and once we had reached the sidewalk just outside it, Olivier spoke in a tone with some of its incredulity from before regained.  
"Man, you and Shiori? I know you knew each other before, but that's just incredible! I still can't believe it!"  
"Hey, there's a part of me that still can't, either." I said truthfully.  
"I can see that…" Olivier said. "Anyway, when I heard about you spending part of your afternoon with Shiori, it made me really want to make a similar move with a girl I'm interested in."  
"Who is she?" I asked.  
Olivier paused for a moment, possibly to collect himself, and then he said, "Nozomi."  
"Wow, her?" I asked in surprise. I had heard about Nozomi Kiyokawa through observations, the grapevine, and my friends. She, like Shiori, was a part of the unofficial A-list of girls at Kirameki, which is saying something considering how well the girls at Kirameki were famed for reasons ranging from academic ability to athletics to looks. I remember one day, us four guys discussed whether she actually ran 50 kilometers (30 miles) every morning as the word in the hallways said.  
"If so," Olivier had said, "that would explain why she's so darn good. She's the downright best swimmer in the school, male or female!"  
You would have had to tell me about Andrea Beard beating Michael Phelps in the breaststroke to surprise me more than that surprised me. I found myself wolf-whistling back then and saying, "Really? Oh, my God…."  
Back in the present, Olivier said, "Yep. We've managed to become friends from working together with her, which means I like the influence she has on me when she's in competitive mode. Also, she looks good—"  
"I guess getting to see her in a swimsuit about two or three times a week does that to you, huh?" I asked, chuckling slightly.  
"Well, I can't say that didn't start me paying attention to her looks, but I can easily imagine her looking good in casual wear. As a matter of fact, I know she does because I've seen her going out by herself on the weekends when she's not training."  
"I can see that." I said honestly.  
Olivier grinned slightly and then said, slightly anxiously, "The thing is, I'd really like to buy something to get her when I ask her out. The only problem is, I also really don't know what to get her."  
I thought hard for about 20 seconds, after which I looked up.  
"Why don't you go and get her some flowers?" I asked.  
"Are you sure about that? Everything I've seen about her so far makes her seem like a tomboy, plain and simple."  
"Hey, when in doubt, go with the flowers. If it doesn't work, you can blame me." I said earnestly.  
Olivier pursed his for a few minutes, evidently thinking hard, and then said, "Okay. Thanks, man."

We arranged for me to accompany him to Nozomi's house the next day to help his nerves, and so the next afternoon we found ourselves outside her house with Olivier toting a dozen roses, half red and half white.  
"Well, here goes." Olivier said. "Hope this works…"  
"Me too." I replied. "Good luck."  
"Thanks." He said, and with that, he took a deep breath and knocked on the door. I saw Nozomi open it, greet him, and allow him to come inside before closing it. I found myself saying another quick prayer for Olivier to get the date he was looking for when the door closed.  
Olivier left the house five minutes later with no sign of Nozomi or her reaction—except the grin on his face when he turned to me, that is.  
Suddenly filled with anticipation of news of success, I asked, "Well?"  
"I got it!" he replied. "Tomorrow night at Central Park!"  
"Yes!" I yelled, and we slapped hands before walking away down the street.  
The next evening, I met up with Olivier at Central Park. Seeing him and Nozomi approaching while sitting on a bench, I had quickly flipped up my copy of USA Today (The international edition) and had pulled it close. Luckily, that tactic worked, and I was able to observe them having an animated conversation.  
"Thanks for letting me spend some time with you today." Olivier was saying. "I had a **great** time today." After pausing for a moment to think, he added, "I think that's because you let your gentler side really show tonight. You should probably let people see that side more often—I think they'd like that." He turned to smile at her.  
"You really think so?" Nozomi asked, in a half-amused, half-worried tone. "Do you think they'd think I'm weird if I stepped out of my 'tomboy' image and went into that more often?"  
"I know **I** don't think you're weird when you do that." Olivier replied.  
"Thanks so much for telling me that…" Nozomi said earnestly, smiling back.  
I found myself having to use the bathroom at that precise moment, so I quickly dashed into the nearby ice cream parlor—the same one where me and the other guys had gone after my first outing with Shiori—used the bathroom, bought a scoop of chocolate in a cup, and headed back out to find Olivier still there with a broad smile on his face.  
"Nice going!" I said fervently. "I really like how you two finished that one up…how was it in general?"  
"Carlo, let me tell you something." Olivier said. "It was **crazy**."  
"Oh, hello!" I whooped, wolf-whistling at the end.  
Olivier asked, "Well, that's you and me now who have girlfriends! Is it too much to hope for all four of us getting girls to confess to us under the tree on Graduation Day?"  
I thought it over hard. The prospect of a clean sweep of successes was alluring and definitely seemed more in reach than it had been at the start of the year, but I knew it might be all but an improbability to have all four of us getting the girls of our dreams on that day.  
In times like this when I didn't know what to tell my friends, I asked them how they felt to get valuable input, so I found myself asking, "Do you think we're ready to take those chances?"  
"I know I am." Olivier said.

That night at a popular arcade/mini-golf place, right before we went inside, we bumped into Nick and Brad about to go in as well.  
"Hey, guys!" Nick said.  
"Hey, how's it going?" Olivier replied.  
"All right." Nick said, and then he said, "You've got a bit of a smile lingering. What's going on?"  
Olivier started going a bit red, but then he said, "Carlo's got company."  
"What do you mean?" Brad asked. "You haven't been going after Shiori, have you?" He looked slightly worried as he bit his lip slightly.  
"No, he hasn't." I said. "He just—tell them about it, Ollie." I said, grinning.  
"Uh, okay." He said. "Uh…I just got here from an outing at Central Park with Nozomi."  
"No way!" Brad said. "How did you…I know you're both on the swim team, but I mean…oh, man!"  
"Wow!" Nick said. "How was it?"  
"Unbelievable." Olivier said, beaming.  
"Oh, man!" Nick said, whistling and chuckling.  
"Wow, nice going!" Brad added, nodding.  
"Yeah, I know!" I said, grinning before making my tone more serious. "Now that's two of us—half of us—who have girlfriends now. I've already talked to Ollie about this, but I want to ask you guys about this too. Do you think it's too much to hope for each of us getting a girl to confess to us under that tree on that day?"  
"Oh, no." Nick said, starting to grin.  
"Absolutely not." Brad agreed.  
"You guys sound like you're setting your sights on some girls already."  
"Yeah, both of us are looking around—and I think I have a clue as to who I want to try." Nick said, now really smiling.  
"Really?" I asked. "Oh, man." I began chuckling slightly.  
This was getting **too** good. In the space of two days, I had not only gone on something of an impromptu date with Shiori, but I was due for another one in six days, Olivier had gone out with Nozomi, and now Nick was telling me he had a girl in his sights. The ending I had been dreaming about now seemed so close to reality that it was frightening a bit.  
"So who's the girl you're looking at?" I asked. Then, realizing I was asking Nick something in public that I wouldn't want someone to ask me while we were in public, I said, "I'm sorry if I'm being too intrusive—you don't have to say it if you like."  
"No, it's okay." Nick said a little dismissively. "I appreciate that, but…uh…well, I was looking first at Saki—you know, the baseball and soccer manager—"  
"Oh, yeah." Brad said. "Then again, who on those teams—especially the baseball team—hasn't been looking at her?"  
"Nobody, from the looks of it." I said.  
"Yeah, I know." Brad said. "There's hardly been a school day when I haven't seen a guy from either of those teams asking her out."  
"Yeah, but last week, I was passing through the tennis courts on the way to the baseball field and a tennis ball hit me." Nick said.  
"Who was it?" I asked.  
"Yukari Koshiki." Nick answered. "You know, the calm girl with purple hair—sometimes red—and pigtails, from Class B?"  
"Yukari Koshiki?" Olivier asked, slightly startled. "I was wondering…is she related to somebody high up at Koshiki Properties?"  
"She is." I answered. "Her father runs it. He met Dad once at a medical fundraising event, and that's how he—and I—found out."  
"Wow..." Brad and Olivier said tremulosuly almost simultaneously.  
"Holy cow!" Nick said, sounding as if he was hardly able to believe it.  
"So what happened?" I asked. For your information, I have never known a friend of mine to want somebody because of money, so I've never worried about that.  
"Well, she said she had seen a bit of practice and had heard that I might be in line to be starting second baseman in the future, which I'm told is told to a freshman even more rarely in Japan than back home and told me she hoped I got it."  
Olivier said, "You might want to consider taking her someplace quiet because she's the relaxed type."  
"No, wait…" Brad said. "Have you thought about playing secret admirer on her?"  
"No, I haven't." Nick replied. "I'm not exactly at the 'admirer' stage yet."  
"You could sign it 'someone who wants to get to know you.'" I suggested, struck with an idea.  
"You know what? I like that." Nick said, grinning at me. "'Someone who wants to get to know you'—that tells the truth about where I am and indicates I'm interested in her. That's good."  
"Do you want to write it out tonight?" I asked.  
"Not right now." Nick replied. "We've spent 5 to 10 minutes out here just talking about this stuff—let's go ahead and get playing!"  
"All right, let's go!" I said, and I led the guys in.  
A few rounds of Time Crisis, Silent Scope, and Dance Dance Revolution later—not to mention a hole-in-one each for me and Olivier—we left the place in very high spirits.  
"I tell you what, not a bad day at all, huh?" I asked Nick with a broad grin on my face.  
"Yeah, you said it. I just hope we keep the momentum going." Nick replied. I could see that as his polite way of saying, "I hope I'm next," but I certainly didn't blame him for it, as I could so easily see myself saying the same thing if we were in each other's shoes.  
I grinned back at him and added, "Me too."

Shiori and I went out once a week that fall break on average, capping it off with what became a double date with Nozomi and Olivier when we bumped into each other at Central Park.  
"Oh, hi, Shiori!" Nozomi called. By the way, I had just found out from Olivier that he was teammates with Nozomi **and** Shiori on the Kirameki swim team.  
"Hi, Nozomi!" Shiori called back. "Hi, Olivier! Had a good evening as well?"  
"Oh, yeah." Nozomi replied, and I caught Olivier's eye and grinned, making him grin back. "You sound like you and Carlo have had fun too."  
"We did." Shiori said. "You don't want to stop walking right now, do you?" She asked me, turning to me.  
"God no." I replied fervently.  
"Mind if we come along?" Nozomi asked. "We're not stopping either, are we?" She asked further, turning to Olivier.  
"Absolutely not." Olivier said. "Let's get going."  
"Oh, this is going to be great." I said fervently, looking at the three others as we set off.  
And that it was. My girlfriend, my best male friend, and his girlfriend…what more could I want? Perhaps Nick and Brad as well, but surprisingly, I found myself just wanting it to be the four of us at that moment.  
"I can't wait to see you three in action with the swim team this spring!" I said. "Ollie's told me some stuff…he said you guys are going to be awesome!" I quickly added, "As if I should have thought anything else with the three of you…"  
"Wow, thanks!" Nozomi and Shiori said together.  
"Yeah, thanks, man!" Olivier said. "You know, I wonder what it's going to be like at practice because of…you know…" He finished slightly worriedly, motioning with his hands between himself and Nozomi.  
"I know…" Nozomi answered, also slightly anxiously.  
"More like what it's going to be like at school in general." I said, suddenly giving it some thought.  
"Oh, don't worry about what they'll say." Shiori answered. "If nothing else, I've chosen to go out with you for the past few weeks, and from what I hear about what's going on with Nozomi and Olivier, it's been the same way over there."  
"It has." Nozomi replied, before adding earnestly. "Besides, Olivier knows what to do and say, so why should I be worried about facing the school about him?"  
"Same here." Shiori said, also earnestly.

When school started back up again, Nozomi, Olivier, Shiori, and I did indeed become more of centers of attention because of our relationships. The news that Olivier and I had been going out regularly with Nozomi and Shiori, respectively, was making waves in the Kirameki pool to say the least. The idea that two of the girls on the unofficial A-list of girls at Kirameki, much less Shiori and Nozomi, had been going out with two of the school's Americans over fall break had the place buzzing.  
"How'd you do it?" Yoshio Saotome asked me during our first week back in an awed voice.  
"No idea." I said earnestly. "And by the way, in my opinion, see if we're still going out in October and then you can probably discuss it."The talk, though, didn't stop. It was as if I was some member of Westlife who had just gone out with Utada (a Japanese pop sensation who now has a music video, Easy Breezy, on iTunes). People—to my relief, Kirameki had an absolute abundance of people who could speak English as well they as they could speak Japanese—would come up to me in the hallways and say things from "I can't believe it!" to "You two really look good together!"  
From what I gathered over what I heard, if Nick and Brad snagged girls of their own and the four of us got confessions on Graduation Day, it was bound to go down as another chapter of the Legend Tree legend at Kirameki (if you know what I'm saying.)  
Our first day back—Labor Day back home—Nick began his anonymous letter move with Yukari.  
"'I don't much about you and I know you don't know much about me, but I do know I'd like to know a little more about you…'" Olivier read Nick's first note before that day began. "Looks good! How do we get it to her?"  
"I'll take it to her." I said.  
"No, wait, I'll do it." Brad said. "You don't want to be seen dropping a note off to anybody but Shiori, so I'll take care of it."  
"Oh, yeah…" I said, suddenly realizing the danger of me going ahead and doing that and thankful for Brad checking me. "Thanks, Brad." I said, grinning.  
That afternoon after school, Nick and Brad ran back to us.  
"Hey, check this out! Yukari read Nick's note and wrote a quick reply to send to him!" He said, once we were out of sight and earshot.  
"Wow, what did it say?" Olivier asked.  
"She was basically asking, 'Have we met? Is there something I know about you?" Nick said.  
"Okay…" I said. "Do you know how you're going to answer that?"  
"Yeah." Nick said. "Something about 'Yes, we have met. From that, I know you'd cheer for me if you saw me play. I also know about your family and rest assured, I am not someone who wants to know you as the Yukari whose father is a real estate magnate. I want to know you, plain and simple.'"  
"Cool." I told him earnestly. "Okay, go ahead with that."  
The next day, Nick came running back to us at the ice cream parlor where we'd gone after my first outing with Shiori.  
"Wow, check this out!" Nick said, bursting in with Olivier this time.  
"Now what?" I asked, eager to hear what Yukari's latest note was like.  
"You'll like it." Nick answered before Brad, Olivier, or I could say anything. "Listen to this—'I have a feeling that you are someone who is not like other people who seek my affection. The idea that I know you, that I have seen your face, and that I have seen what you can do just on the field, is even more exciting.' How's that?"  
"Wow…" I said almost at the same time with Olivier, only except I was also wolf-whistling at the end.  
"I know!" Nick said, grinning broadly. "Okay, what now?"  
"Well, I think she's almost bursting at the seams to know who's writing to her, so I say ask her out in your next note." Brad said.  
"Really?" Nick asked. "Any place you'd suggest?"  
"Central Park." I said almost without hesitation. "I think that's our lucky dating spot. I had my first outing with Shiori with a big finish there, Olivier had his first date with Nozomi with a big finish there, and we had an impromptu cool double date begin there, so go with that."  
"Sounds good." Nick said, now starting to sound anxious, half from excitement and half from tension.  
That Saturday, after I finished working on some science homework, I called Nick to find out how it went.  
Nick picked up the phone with an energetic "Hey!" To my surprise, Olivier followed over the line with a "Hey!" of his own.  
"What's going on, guys?" I asked, slightly puzzled. "Conference call?"  
"Apparently now, yeah." Olivier replied.  
"Let me guess…date went well?" I asked further, now feeling simply very eager to find out.  
"You bet." Nick said fervently. "Yukari was a little surprised it was me, but apparently, she liked the fact that it was me sending her those notes. And get this—we did not have a slow date."  
"Really?" I asked, and absolutely nothing against Nick, but I was wondering how on earth someone could take Yukari out on something other than a slow date and have it go well.  
"Turns out she confided to me that even though she's calm, she likes adventure and action, just not loud places. We ended up going through Central Park and then all over the zoo. I think I was able to score a few bonus points with her because we were rushing from attraction to attraction by the end even though we were on time by good margins the whole time."  
"Wow!" I said, ecstatic to hear the news while also jolted by Yukari's revelation about herself.  
"I know!" Olivier said, also very happy judging by the tone of his voice. "You know what this means…three down, one to go!"  
"Yeah—of course, assuming we don't do anything s-." My family considers "st" a bad word, so I just say it that way.  
"I hear you. I really think we've got it so far, but I hear you." Nick said.  
"Me too." Olivier said. "Don't worry, Carlo—I pay a lot more attention when it comes to Nozomi than I normally do about myself! And fortunately, there's this spillover effect that's got me paying more attention to myself as is, which certainly helps!"  
"Oh, the crazy things love can do, eh?" I asked, chuckling and making the others laugh.

On the Wednesday after that, I woke up to my alarm, dressed in my summer uniform, and headed down to breakfast. I was halfway through my large mug full of loaded Nesquik and a S'mores Pop-Tart when I realized Shiori was heading out of her house, and I suddenly remembered the fact that she regularly woke up early to get to school with time to spare. I had seen her leaving her house one morning as I had been getting up (I didn't get to school late very often, for your information) and had confirmed that habit after talking to the other guys, but I hadn't had the chance to catch her until that day.  
Eager to finally do just that, I quickly polished off my Nesquik and my Pop-Tart, took my allergy medication, hurriedly brushed my teeth, and left a note telling Mom and Dad why I would be heading out early before heading out, managing by running to catch her before she reached the subway station that I used to take the subway part of the way to school. Once we had met, it seemed as if we created an enjoyable conversation in no time flat.  
Talking animatedly with her made me feel more ready for school than a full night of study could. I felt as if nothing could go wrong.  
Unfortunately, when one has that sentiment, what happens more often than not is something bad happens. And that is precisely what happened—with a capital P.  
Once we were off the train and one block from Kirameki, we suddenly caught sight of Nozomi, Olivier, Nick, and Brad approaching the intersection we were heading towards from the street perpendicular to the one we were on.  
I called out to them, "Hey, morning, guys! How's it going?"  
They didn't give me a straight answer, which was surprising. Even more surprising was that upon seeing us, they ran across the street, with Nozomi calling urgently, "Shiori! Carlo! Did you see it yet?"  
"See what?" Shiori asked. "What's going on?"  
"Did you get the chance to look at the news this morning?" Brad asked with the same note of urgency, looking at both of us.  
"Uh, no." I said.  
"Me neither." Shiori answered.  
Something in the air and in the way Nozomi, Nick, and Brad were talking told me it wasn't good news, but I still asked, "What's going on?"  
"What is it?" Shiori asked.  
As Nick gave his answer, his eyes moved from Shiori and me to just me.  
"Someone flew a couple of planes into the Twin Towers. They're **gone**, Carlo. **Both** of them!"  
The bottom dropped out of my stomach at Nick's words. Not only did it hit me hard as an American, but I also felt the impact to say the least because even though I was North Carolinian, I was a New Yorker by birth. My mind therefore found itself reeling as I tried to imagine the New York skyline without the World Trade Center.  
"Oh, my God." I said tremulously as I digested the September 11 news.  
Beside me, Shiori gasped, put a hand to her mouth, and then lowered it and said in a tremulous tone not unlike mine, "Oh, my goodness…"  
As the impact of the news began to sink in, I found myself soon saying, "Oh, Christ…are you guys okay?" I looked up at Nick, Brad, Olivier, and Nozomi to scan their grave expressions.  
"Yeah, I'm okay." Olivier answered.  
"Me too." Nozomi replied.  
"Same here." Brad said.  
"We're fine, Carlo. Thanks for asking, but don't worry about us." Nick replied.  
"Are **you** okay?" He and Shiori asked me together, and I found myself looking from him to her.  
"Yes." I said with newfound resolve, trying my best to make eye contact with both of them, and then added, "I think we better get our butts moving."  
I hiked up my backpack and was about to get walking again when Shiori said, "Hang on…do you guys want me and Nozomi to walk you into the building?"  
I looked back at her.  
"I think that would **really** help. Thanks a lot!" I said fervently.  
"You're welcome. All right, Nozomi, which side do you want to be on?" Shiori asked.  
"I'll go on their left." Nozomi replied.  
"Okay, you do that, then. Carlo, Brad, Olivier, Nick, you get in a horizontal line between her and me."  
Shiori's voice was firm but not bossy—her way, now that I look back on it, of saying, "There is no way that we are letting you four face the world alone today."  
It might have been only Shiori and Nozomi on either side of us, but I felt as if it was two Secret Service agents for each of us four boys. It was that comforting. With that reassuring presence, I hiked up my backpack again, set my jaw, and started walking with the others towards the entrance.  
When people saw us, they were quick to run up to us, offer their condolences, and ask if we were okay. Shiori and Nozomi were a big help in this area as well by speaking for us and assuring them that we would be fine.

Class that day seemed to be a cross between a blur and a haze. Some teachers went ahead with their planned lessons, while others postponed them to either talk about the ramifications of the attacks or to let us watch footage from New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.  
I remember seeing a lot of somber faces in that room and personally do not remember any of my teachers looking as somber as they did that day. Even more unnerving was the fact that if they weren't looking at our teachers or the TV, they were shooting concerned glasses at me, Brad, Nick, and Olivier. During lunch, I found myself having to call my parents just to check on them, and Megumi Mikihara was almost in tears. A part of me felt an extremely dreadful sensation that made me think I had lost my innocence.  
Once the school day was over, we headed over to the modern-looking school gym-style stadium and sat on the steps. Just at the entrance at the end facing the school was a sort of courtyard that was a place to go whenever one needed peace, except for when there was a game going on inside. Fortunately, that was not the case that day, so we sought sanctuary at that entrance. We couldn't get there ourselves, though—we found a small group including Saki and Yukari also looking to collect themselves.

"Oh, hi, Carlo! Hi, Nick!" Saki said, still trying to display some cheerfulness or some semblance thereof despite the atmosphere. "Are you still okay?"  
"Yeah, they're fine." Shiori replied. "These boys have been taking it as well as they can all day." She said, motioning towards me, Nick, Olivier, and Brad.  
"I know…" Yukari replied as we sat on the steps. Shiori, Nick, Brad, Nozomi, Olivier, and I found ourselves surrounded in a semicircle by Saki, Yukari, and company. Turning to us, Yukari said, "I'll tell you something—I'm proud of you for bearing yourselves that way even after what happened. I was telling Nick it's terrible for us, so I can only imagine how bad it must be for the four of you."  
The four of us thanked her somewhat simultaneously, with Nick first.  
"I don't know if any of you girls know this, but even though all of us are from North Carolina, Carlo was born in New York." Olivier said. "As a matter of fact, he was born in Manhattan, so whoever did this just hit his first neighborhood."  
Shiori gasped and put her hand to her mouth again, as did some others, then looked at me concernedly. "Oh, no…Is that true?"  
"Yeah." I answered.  
"Wow…that must be even more terrible…" Shiori said concernedly, putting her hand on my shoulder. Others were also looking at me with worried looks.  
I managed a weak grin as I relaxed at Shiori's touch and said, "Like I said, I'll be fine. Thanks for the concern, though. You might also want to look out for Nick—he's a Yankees fan." I motioned towards him.  
"Yeah…" Nick said as more gasps emanated and the group's eyes—mine included—flew to him. "But like the Yankees, I'm not here—**we're** not here—" He said, motioning towards me, Olivier, and Brad, and then Shiori and Nozomi, before adding, "And I don't think any of you are either—to lick our wounds. We're here to play hard and work hard."  
As if to punctuate his message, he pulled out a black Bronx Bombers cap from his bag and put it on. I felt such an upsurge of awe and pride at Nick's statement that if it were not the day I heard about the attacks, I would have been beaming like the proud friend that I undisputably was at the moment. Everyone was nodding their heads and expressing their assent, and some—including Shiori, Olivier, Nozomi, Nick, Brad, and myself—managed weak grins.  
"Oh, Nick…" Yukari said weakly, looking at Nick with admiration and tears in her eyes as they met his own. "Wow…"  
I was almost on the other side of the world from home and I had just heard about the worst terrorist attack to hit the United States leveling perhaps the most recognizable landmark in New York City…and yet, I could not help but marvel at what my friends had done that day. My **newfound steady girlfriend** Shiori had made a day-long gesture I would never have dreamed of, Nozomi had been as much of a protector as Shiori, Olivier and Brad had borne themselves well in the face of the magnitude of the attacks, and Nick outperformed the other three of us boys with his own way of handling it, as evidenced by his statement on the steps of the stadium entrance that afternoon.  
Fortunately for all of us, it was a sign of things to come.

In the next chapter— "Holiday Cheer":  
When Brad emerges as the surprise winner of a musical composition contest, he attracts the attention of a girl he begins to become interested in. Also, as Christmas approaches and the snow begins to fall, Shiori, Nozomi, Yukari, Carlo, Olivier, and Nick, now romantically involved, find themselves in for a holiday season unlike any they have experienced before. Will Brad have a girlfriend of his own by December 25th and be able to share in it?

Author's Soundtrack Suggestions

**Original Version** (released before July/August 2001)  
Where The Streets Have No Name—U2  
Performed at halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI, this is a well-written and emotional song I associate a lot with September 11.

**Modern Version**  
Slow Motion—Juvenile featuring Soulja Slim  
This, in my opinion, can be a reflection of how Shiori can be alluring even when she is doing everyday things, with its mention of boys not knowing how to act around her. It can also fit in because of how the people who perform this ask the girls they're after to stop playing around—which is fitting because Shiori has yet to go out on something even close to a date before this chapter.


	4. Holiday Cheer

That afternoon, Shiori and I found ourselves alone at Central Park after Nick, Olivier, Yukari, Nozomi, and Brad had to head home. We were seated on the same bench we had sat on during our first outing, and Shiori had a comforting arm draped around my shoulder.  
"Thanks **so much** for doing that for us today." I said. "It meant a **lot** to me and the others." I said, feeling my emotions well up.  
"No thanks needed, but you're welcome. Let me tell you something, Carlo…" She said, now moving her left hand so that both of her hands were clasping my own. She then told me, "I don't know if what we have now is what we had before or something else, but I do know that when all is said and done, I never want to see you sad. I never want to see you cry." She finished, with the sincerity reaching from her voice to those warm chestnut brown eyes.  
I felt myself break down at those words just sort of tears.  
"Oh, God…" I said as I embraced her and sunk into her. "Thank you **so much**…" I said again, hardly able to think of anything else.  
Shiori made a terrific reply by just simply returning the embrace tightly. We just sat there holding each other for a while before we walked home together as the sun began to set. For some reason, our Yokohama home felt more like a refuge than ever than night.

Over the next few months, between the news of Japanese troops being sent for defensive purposes to Afghanistan—the first time Japan had deployed troops overseas since World War II—and the news of a coalition led by American and British forces taking the fight to the Taliban big-time, things returned close enough to normal for our palate.  
Our good academic performance before we had started dating didn't end just because we were happy in our relationships. If anything, having Shiori, Nozomi, and Yukari only kicked us into a higher gear.  
A shocking event at the start of October saw us garner our first nickname. During announcements during lunch one day, a girl called out over the PA in both Japanese and English, "And now, we are pleased to announce that the winner of this year's Kirameki musical composition contest is Bradford Ralston!"  
I knew Brad was a talented drummer, but I had no idea he was **that** good of a composer, so I found myself slapping him on the back enthusiastically while yelling, "Oh, my God! Nice going!""Whoa!" Nick said, doing the same. "Nice job!"  
"Yeah, way to go!" Olivier added as more hands started to cascade on Brad's back.  
An attractive girl with dark purple eyes and matching hair that was tied in a topknot but that also framed her face on either side came up to Brad and held out her hand. "Hey, Brad. Very well done! I can't believe you did it! It's normally an upperclassman who wins that!"  
"Hi." Brad said a bit timidly as he stood up and shook it. "I don't think we've met…"  
"Oh, hang on, let me introduce you to her." I said as I stood up and got next to them so I could do just that. "Brad, Ayako Katagiri. You've **got** to check out her artwork sometime."  
"I have already! I know, it's awesome! I just didn't know who she was, since I never heard the name." He told me, before turning back to Ayako and asking, "Is there anything new I could check out?"  
"Yeah. I'd be really glad to let you see them." Ayako said. She had been smiling ever since Brad had praised her artwork.  
"Do you want to meet outside the auditorium entrance and show those drawings to me then?" Brad asked.  
"I'm not free this afternoon, but I can certainly meet you there on Friday afternoon at about 2:45 if it's okay with you." Ayako replied, smiling.  
"Thanks a lot!" Brad said.  
Once she had left and we had taken our seats again, he sighed with relief and said, "Wow, she had me scared for a minute!"  
"I saw her artwork once when I was heading out. She can do some crazy things with a pencil or pen, no doubt about that!" Olivier said, grinning at him.  
"I'll say." I said, nodding earnestly. "That's how I saw her artwork as well—by a chance encounter."  
"How'd you find out who she was?" Nick asked. "I think you're the only one of us who knew her name before today."  
"I was telling her about how good her artwork looked when I saw her, and then she asked if she could help me with her math." I replied. "I really hope you have a good afternoon on Friday with her, Brad."  
"She's definitely interesting, I'll tell you that much." Brad said, sounding slightly eager and slightly nervous.  
"I don't want to jinx it, but off the top of my head, the best composer in the school and the best artists in the school? Sounds like a match to me!" Nick said.  
Brad grinned, chuckled, and turned slightly red. 

On Friday afternoon, Shiori and I happened to be on a triple date with Nozomi and Olivier and Yukari and Nick. Every so often—roughly once a month on average, we would go out as a group and have fun together as couples and as friends, if you know what I mean. We'd had our first triple date towards the end of September at Central Park and had decided to do another one that afternoon.  
It went off extremely well, but the real action occurred near the end when we were heading back towards Kirameki.  
"Where's Brad?" Yukari asked. "I rarely see only three of you boys together. Just only one or two, perhaps, if not all four of you, but not only three of you."  
"He's meeting Ayako this afternoon at the auditorium entrance." Olivier replied.  
"That's interesting." Nozomi said earnestly. "You know, I think they might be good together."  
"That's what I was telling the guys earlier week." Nick said. "I really hope it's working out."  
"Me too." I said earnestly. Turning to Shiori, I asked, "Do you think they'd be a good fit?"  
"Let me put it this way: If you met Ayako outside of class and she didn't have her sketchbook out, you wouldn't guess she's an aspiring artist." Shiori replied. "She's into rock and action movies, which I know Brad will like. Also, when I think of an ideal guy for Ayako, I think about an artist, and if his winning that contest is any indication, which I think it is and like to think it is, he falls under that category even though he's got drumsticks in place of pencils and pens."  
We were nearing the courtyard with both the gym-style stadium and the auditorium entrances by now.  
"Hey, someone's still there." Nick said. "Is it them?"  
"I don't know." Nozomi said. "Let me check, though."  
She ran up to the side of the auditorium and looked around the corner at the entrance as my curiosity started to well up. Judging from the way she ran back, it was.  
"It's them!" Nozomi said, confirming our suspicions. "Do you want to take a look?"  
"Why not?" I asked. "How are they looking?""I wasn't able to hear much, but it sounded good to me." Nozomi replied, grinning. "Do the rest of you want to see?" She asked us.  
"Uh…okay!" Yukari answered.  
"Yeah, let me see that!" Olivier said.  
We quickly moved to the side of the auditorium and peered around the corner towards the entrance. Brad and Ayako were seated in the middle of the auditorium steps chatting animatedly.  
"Aww…" Yukari said. "They do look good together!"  
"Let's split up." Nick said. "Let's have some people go around to the other side of the building so that more people can watch at a time."  
"Okay, let's do that." Shiori replied. She, Olivier, and Nick went around the back of the auditorium to the other side while I stayed with Nozomi and Yukari.  
From our vantage point, we were able to watch and hear Brad and Ayako's conversation, taking turns to peer around the auditorium corner at them.  
"I'm just wondering…how do you go about drawing once you have a subject?" Brad asked.  
"Good question." Ayako replied. "I like to make polished drawings, if you know what I mean, but when I'm starting out, I don't worry about the details. As a matter of fact, one of the first things you're told when learning to draw is to worry about the details later. Is it the same with music?"  
"Yeah, you could definitely say that. It's another area where you want to make something very polished and refined, but you also want to not worry about the details until it's time to hone the piece. I mean, I know I get some of my inspiration when I'm just doing freestyle drum segments where I just hit drums like crazy at random…"  
Brad mimed doing just that and even imitated the sounds a little bit, making Ayako laugh and smile.  
"I tell you, there's nothing like hearing or seeing something that inspires you to make something, huh?" She asked.  
"Definitely not much." Brad said. "But one edge you've got over me there is that you can just start drawing on the spot if you have your stuff while I have to wait until I get back to my drum set."  
"But you've also got an advantage over me." Ayako replied, laughing a little more. "Nothing against art shows and museums, but if I make something good, it's displayed a little more quietly. I mean, what do you think gets more exposure, a piece of art at an art show or a drum segment at a musical competition, a concert, or a sports event?"  
"True…" Brad replied cautiously, "but who do you hear teachers talking about more, Monet or Ringo Starr? Art gets more exposure in that department."  
"Wow, they do make a good fit!" Nozomi whispered, turning back to me and Yukari.  
"Looks like somebody's making the right moves…" I whispered back, nodding.  
"I definitely think both of them are. Come on, let's get out of here. I've got a feeling something bad's going to happen if we stay longer." Yukari said.  
None of the rest of us was in the mood to tempt fate either, so we signaled to Shiori, Olivier, and Nick and pulled out. When Nick, Olivier, and I apprehensively told him later when we were talking about that evening that we had been watching, he thankfully wasn't too much on our case for it.

The next week, the four of us were in the latest edition of the school paper. I was in it because I had an article on the volleyball team, but the others also featured because someone had decided to feature the four of us because of how well the four of us had been doing—all of us in the classroom, plus me in math and general academic competition, Nick in baseball, Olivier in swimming, and Brad in music. Of course, since this was Kirameki, they also hit on the fact that now all four of us were dating.  
"Look at this!" Brad said when we were having lunch together. "Fantastic Four fly US flag high…"  
"Santos, DeRose, Sevin, and Ralston are turning heads with what has happened in their lives inside and outside the classroom in their first six months at Kirameki…" Nick said, chuckling.  
"Whoa…" Olivier said. "I'm not a prima donna, but if we weren't on the map before, we are now!"  
"Me neither, but it sure looks like it…"One day in November, Shiori and I had just finished up a visit together to a nearby indoor ski/snowboard dome (I snowboard, while Shiori skis) when we found Olivier and Nozomi heading out of a nearby bowling alley laughing.  
"Hi, Ollie! Hi, Nozomi!" I called.  
"Oh, hey, Carlo! Hey, Shiori!" Olivier called back, before saying as Shiori and I met them, "You guys are not going to believe this, but…"  
"But what?" Shiori asked, smiling at them. "What are you two laughing about?"  
"I...Shiori...it was so funny...I hit him with a bowling ball in there!" Nozomi managed to say. She and Olivier started to laugh a little harder.  
"What?" Shiori and I asked almost simultaneously, laughing. I wasn't sure if I'd heard him right, and I think Shiori was too.  
Shiori, still laughing, managed to ask, "It was an accident, right?"  
"Yeah." Olivier said reassuredly, nodding and grinning at Nozomi, making her grin and nod before he continued, "I went to go get a drink, and right when I got back, I had a small lapse in attention and…can you tell them, Nozomi?"  
"I was trying to wind up a little more to the left to get a little bit of spin on it—you know, like you see on TV," Nozomi said, making me and Shiori nod, "and I tried taking it too far left!"  
"As a result, she got me in the head!" Oliver finished.  
Both Shiori and I burst out laughing again. "Oh, no…" Shiori managed to say, holding her chest.  
"Oh, my God…" I said, having to turn away and lean over for a minute because I was laughing so hard. "Are you okay?" I asked, getting a grip on myself.  
"Yeah, don't worry about it. It wasn't too bad." Olivier replied. 

At the end of November, the guys and I had Thanksgiving dinner together with our families. It was a very homey thing, complete with turkey and all that good stuff. Whenever we did that, the food and conversation made us have to look out the window to remember that it wasn't America.  
"What's one thing you're thankful for?" Mr. Sevin asked Olivier when we were almost done eating.  
Olivier thought for a moment, and then said sincerely with his share of emotion, "Nozomi, without a doubt. I really think we've got a chance to make it to Graduation Day under the tree. It's just been so crazy…I didn't know if I had much of a chance with anybody—and I think the rest of us felt the same—" He motioned towards me, Brad, and Nick here, making us nod firmly, before continuing, "and now look at us. We're all with girls we definitely feel comfortable with, to say the least, because Brad now has Ayako, Nick's got Yukari, and Carlo? Enough said."  
I found myself returning grins from Olivier, Nick, Brad, and their parents. My own parents suddenly looked at me in surprise.  
"Who are you dating?" Dad asked in a surprised tone.  
"Haven't you heard?" Mr. Ralston said jokingly, laughing and grinning at me. "None other than young Miss Fujisaki!"  
"Shiori?" Dad asked. "You're joking!"  
"It's true! Carlo and Shiori were the talk of the school at one point! And as Brad tells us," he said, indicating Mrs. Ralston as Brad nodded, "they're still an item over there!"  
"Is that true?" Mom sounded as surprised as Dad.  
"Yeah." I said. I hadn't told them because I wanted it to be a pleasant surprise.  
"Wow!" Mom said, high-fiving me much to my relief and contentment.  
"That's really good." Dad said, nodding fervently. "I really like her. She's got everything." He was almost speaking reverently.  
I considered telling Dad about Shiori considering Duke, but I knew that whatever came out of his mouth as a result, it would involve using that fact as motivation to shoot for Duke. I honestly didn't need that because I was already using that motivation.

Finally, after we had impressed during winter exams to ensure ourselves honor-roll-esque standing, we were let out for winter break on December 21.  
True to tradition, the guys (they were in on this too) and I had changes of casual clothes on hand—in this case, winter wear. Just as well, too—there was a forecast of dry snow showers for the day, and flakes were already starting to come down as the last bell rang. This time, though, Shiori caught me asking the guys, "Meet you outside in a few minutes?"  
"Yeah." They said.She then held me up outside the men's room right after the other three had gone in and asked, "Are you going to put on something warmer?"  
"Yeah." I answered.  
"You know, I think I'll do that too." She said. "I've got a change of clothes today as well."  
We promptly split up for the moment, and I joined Olivier, Nick, and Brad in the men's room. The four of us came back out wearing pants (all of us but Nick had khakis while he had denim), sneakers, white socks, long-sleeved shirts, and jackets.  
"Good grief, I look like a grounds crew member." I said off-handedly to the others. My jacket was made up of a dark navy semi-stiff waterproofed material with orange mesh lining, a hood, and a partial zipper.  
"Hey, I don't think Shiori'll mind." Brad said.  
"How'd you know I was meeting her outside?" I asked, comforted but also slightly startled.  
"We heard her hold you up out there." Nick said.  
"I guess I should have known." I said, chuckling slightly as we headed towards the door.  
"Hey, pull your hood over your eyes. Let's see how she reacts." Nick suggested, grinning.  
"Okay, let's try that." I said after considering it, curious to see Shiori's reaction. With that, I pulled my hood over my head as far as it would go and tilted forward slightly so that someone in front of me would have trouble seeing my eyes or glasses (I've worn glasses since 3rd grade).  
Just outside the door, I could see Shiori in a pretty winter outfit: what looked like a mid-thigh pink dress and an overcoat of the same length. To round it out, she was also wearing magenta slippers with slightly raised heels (no socks) and she was carrying a medium-size leather purse.  
"Dang, man, she's dressed up! And to think that's for you!" Olivier said, nudging me playfully.  
"Go get her, Carlo." Nick said, grinning at me and slapping me on the back.  
"Okay." I said, grinning back. "I got her." I tilted forward slightly again (I had been standing up straight when I was looking at Shiori) and walked on ahead.  
I stopped when I could make out Shiori's magenta slippers on the ground in front of me.  
"Hi, stranger." I heard Shiori's voice say. "What have you been up to on the street? Or would it be better if I didn't know?"  
"And what's a beauty like you doing talking to a guy like me?" I asked in reply, moving my hood back behind my head.  
"Well, now it's trying to spread some holiday cheer, especially now that I recognize that it's my favorite street-bred person in the world in front of me." I saw her smile more broadly and ask, "It's the New Yorker in you, isn't it?"  
"I guess." I said, smiling back. "I was just telling my friends that this jacket makes me look like a grounds crew member."  
"'Grounds crew'?" Shiori asked, puzzled.  
"The guys at baseball games who pull the tarp out when it starts raining and whatnot." I quickly explained.  
"Oh, those!" Shiori said. "I'm sorry—I only know the Japanese term for that."  
"It's okay." I said. "Okay, see you later!" I called, turning back towards the other guys.  
"Hey, Carlo!" Olivier called.  
"What?" I asked.  
"Do you want some company?" Olivier asked. "We've got some **certain others**," he said, smiling, "who are going to meet us too and we're probably going to go together, so do you want to come?"  
Not able to decide right off the bat, I turned to Shiori. She was looking back at me, and I had no doubt that she knew who Olivier was talking about.  
"Why not?" She asked.  
"Yeah, I guess. Why not?" I answered, grinning. With that, I called back to Olivier and the others, "Why not?"  
Five minutes later, Nozomi, Yukari, and Ayako had joined us, all in their best casual dress winter wear. Looking around at the rest of them, I said brightly, "Well, let's get our butts moving!"  
We walked together off campus and then turned towards Central Park.  
"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas…" I found myself singing as we headed away from the school with more snow starting to fall. Shiori even dropped in with a verse, and Nozomi and Ayako were just joining in when we reached the other end of Central Park.  
Just as we reached that other end, I spotted four one-horse open sleighs—the ones they sing about in Jingle Bells—parked on the other side of the street.  
"Wait a minute." I said. I hailed a driver and quickly asked him if he could take us on a scenic route.  
It's funny how things work out sometimes. The only moves I knew when it came to relationships were the things you see in movies—flowers, chocolates, paying during dates, and whatnot—and extremely fortunately for me, it was working like a charm. Why was that relevant? For the most part, I work on the principle of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", especially in important situations. That meant you wouldn't and won't see me going too far from my tried-and-true stuff on dates, tests, and things like that. When I saw the sleighs, I knew I couldn't pass up that chance if I knew what was good for me—and Shiori.  
"Oh, this is going to be fun!" Shiori said, her eyes lighting up.  
"I thought you'd like it."  
Shiori smiled at me and stretched her right hand out at me (I was standing to her right). Quickly realizing what was going on, I offered her my hand and helped her up into the sleigh we were next to as she giggled and I chuckled.  
"Hey, hold up for a minute! Let's get on these other sleighs!" Brad called. After the other guys chatted with the girls, they evidently unanimously decided to come along, because within the next five minutes, they were loaded, one couple to a sleigh, in the other three sleighs.  
With that, our drivers cracked their reins, and down the street we went. I glanced at Shiori and saw that her eyes were still alight with excitement as if it was Christmas Day already. For my part, I was also enjoying the ride a lot, savoring the fact that Shiori and I were actually going around Yokohama by one-horse open sleigh.  
After about 15 minutes, the sleighs took us past a sign that I recognized as the Tokyo city limit sign. Yokohama and Tokyo are like Minneapolis and St. Paul—two neighboring cities melded into each other. Sometimes, the guys and I would venture into Tokyo if we wanted a change from Yokohama (nothing against Yokohama, since it's a great city in its own right), and it never disappointed.  
After about five more minutes, during which we grinned and laughed at Yukari's rendition of Jingle Bells, Shiori asked, "Do you want to get inside and have something to drink?" Shiori asked. "I love traveling around in this and I love it when it snows, but it's really starting to get cold."  
"Why not?" I answered honestly, as the cold was starting to get to me a bit (which is something, as I have a good tolerance for cold.) "I really could use a drink."  
Five minutes later, after the sleigh drivers had graciously agreed to wait for us as long as we didn't take too long inside, we disembarked at a Starbucks and rushed inside, eager to warm ourselves. Each of us ordered a cup of hot chocolate and took our seats at two tables, with the guys at one table and the girls at another, with the two tables close together.  
"Wow!" Yukari said. "I can't believe we actually traveled here by sleigh!"  
"I'm finding it pretty hard, but man, that was a blast! Good eye, Carlo!" Nick said.  
"Oh, stop it." I said dismissively, turning red slightly. "I mean, if you hadn't come, I wouldn't have been mad…"  
"Well, let's just say it looks like you have a touch for working in groups." Ayako replied.  
"It certainly seems that way. Nothing like a cup of this when the weather's like this, huh?" Nozomi asked, indicating the hot chocolate.  
"No, ma'am!" Nick said fervently.  
"Why don't we have a few toasts?" Ayako asked.  
"That sounds good." Olivier said. "Who's going first?"  
"I don't know about you, but I say we let the future Golden Couple start it!" Yukari said.  
The Golden Couple, as me and the other guys had learned, was and is to Graduation Day under the Legend Tree as the homecoming queen is to homecoming: the people of the hour. Speculation was already being made around the school about me and Shiori being the Golden Couple for our graduating class, the class of 2004. If our story took place in Great Britain, people would have been betting on us winning that honor. For our part, both Shiori and I thought it was cool to be getting that sort of hype, but we didn't let ourselves get too full of it.  
"Okay…" I said, grinning half from contentment and half from nervousness. "Ladies first." I finished, looking at Shiori.  
"Okay…" Shiori said, pausing to think before she beamed, raised her cup, and proclaimed, "To peace on earth and goodwill toward **humans**."  
"Oh, yeah!" I said fervently as my way of saying, "I hear you!"  
"Amen to that!" Nick said just as fervently amidst the nods and expressions of assent.  
"Hear, hear!" Yukari said as we started touching our cups together.  
Once we had finished with Shiori's toast, Nick wiped his mouth, turned to me, and asked, "What you got, Carlo? Can you top that?"  
"I don't know if I can, Nick," I said, grinning as I found the group's eyes shifting to me, before raising my cup and saying, "But…to more Christmases like this one—if not better!" I said.  
"Oh, I like that!" Nick whooped.  
"Nice, Carlo! I'll certainly drink to that!" Shiori said, smiling as she raised her cup and touched it to the rest of ours.  
"I tell you what, I don't know who had the better toast, Shiori or you!" Ayako said before she took another sip.  
Once the rest of us had had toasts and we had some short but engaging conversations about family holiday traditions and whatnot and were ready to head back out to the sleighs, I asked Shiori, "Hey, Shiori, can I talk to you outside for a sec?"  
"Sure." She said, and we stepped out into the snow just outside the windows.  
"I know it isn't Christmas yet, but I wanted to give you this in case we don't bump into each other then." I told her once we were there.  
It was a good thing that my parents had found out at Thanksgiving that I was dating Shiori. My father had suggested my Christmas present to her saying, "Why don't you give this to Shiori? I know she'll like it."  
With that, I pulled out a string bracelet with a simple wood centerpiece with a design painted on it and some beads on either side of it.  
"Merry Christmas." I told her, smiling.  
"Oh, Carlo…" Shiori said in wonder as she took it from me and held the ends in either hand. "It's beautiful…"  
"It's a friendship bracelet." I said, not able to find it with me to disagree, something I often do when I want to be modest. "It's a Filipino symbol. I don't mean to brag, but it's just so you know that you've got me whenever you need me." "Oh, come on, it's not much." I said.  
"Don't tell me that. It's terrific!" Shiori said in reply.  
"Thanks. I'll tell you something, Shiori." I said. "Remember when you told me on September 11 that you never wanted to see me cry?"  
"Yes." Shiori said.  
"I have a confession to make. If there's one thing I can't handle, it's letting family and friends down." I said meaningfully. "Like you, I can't make out whether what we have is what we had before or something else, but I also know that because I can't stand letting others down, I know it'd almost kill me to see you down. You need something, talk to me." I punctuated my point by smiling at the end.  
"So that's why you work well with others—you don't want to let others down?" Shiori asked.  
"That's right." I said. "At the very least, I think it's the biggest reason. Like I said, you need something, talk to me."  
"Oh, Carlo, thank you so much…" Shiori said, embracing me warmly after I placed the bracelet into her hand, making me smile further. "Will you help me put it on?"  
"Sure!" I said, grinning.  
"Oh, hang on, that reminds me…Merry Christmas to you too." She said, still smiling as she pulled out an official-looking pass inside a clear plastic holder hung on a lanyard and handed it to me.  
"What the…" I gasped, absolutely stunned. The pass was a VIP pass to the new Tokyo Disney Resort.  
I had once confessed to Shiori on a date that I was (and am) a Disney fan. I like watching cartoons featuring Mickey and company when I like a laugh, so sometimes you can find me flipping to Disney Channel if I wanted to have a laugh and have a laugh. You could even say I owned the Walt Disney Company—if only in the smallest sense, as I owned a single share of Disney (I have since expanded my stake, by the way.)  
"How did you get this?" I managed, still stunned.  
"Becoming friends with Yukari has its advantages." Shiori said, smiling. "She said she had a spare, so when I mentioned you were a Disney fan, she was able to pass it on."  
Evidently, dating the four of us had brought Shiori, Nozomi, Yukari, and Ayako closer together. I smiled at Shiori's present and that thought as I laughed and then hugged her. "Thanks a **lot**, Shiori." I said fervently again.  
After more fun in Tokyo at various locations, all the while traveling by one-horse open sleigh, we headed home that night singing The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. My last thought as Shiori and I said goodbye for the moment to the others to head home was, **God, I love how that was so appropriate.**

In the next chapter—"Faceoffs And Bonding":   
You've seen how Carlo and Shiori, Olivier and Nozomi, Nick and Yukari, and Brad and Ayako are together…now see how they act when pitted in competition against each other! From PE to academic competition, it's certainly something the school's going to be watching! Also, more drama ensues during a class field trip to Hiroshima, including a trip to the Hiroshima Peace Park...

Soundtrack Suggestions (in this installment, both Original and Modern Versions-and you can use the artists of your choice) 

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year  
Sleigh Ride  
Jingle Bells


	5. Faceoffs And Bonding

Things kept going well on all fronts as we rang in 2002 and spring began to approach. Valentine's Day went off well without a hitch, but ironically it was the week after that that proved to be more eventful.   
On Monday, we were in PE for two of the days designated as "stress busters"—days where PE was just friendly competition between classmates ahead of exams in less than two weeks. That day, it was one-set tennis. Up until that point, during those "stress busters", the guys and I hadn't played with or against Shiori, Nozomi, Yukari, or Ayako—but that was all set to change.

That day, by random drawing, I was matched against Yukari, while Olivier would face Shiori, Nick would battle Nozomi, and Brad would go against Ayako. A bunch of eyes widened as those pairings were announced, and not all of them belonged to us, which I'm sure is because they knew what that draw meant.  
"Wow, it's the guys against the girls today!" Olivier said.  
"I know!" I said, grinning. Then, lowering my voice, I asked him, "What do you say we try to take 'em down today?"  
"Yeah, that'd be cool! You think I can take Shiori?" He asked, looking towards her nervously before turning back to me.  
I decided to draw on something Dad told me once for inspiration. "Hey, the ball is round. That's why they play the game." Hearing myself say that got me even more ready to play Yukari even in spite of her being on the tennis team. Olivier played tennis alongside Yukari at an athletic club close to the school, so he was able to report to me once before that day, "She's not exactly the biggest name on the list, but she's solid."  
Yukari and I didn't say much beforehand, even though her ongoing good run with Nick had seen her and me becoming friends. By the way, I had really been thankful that she had opted to let Shiori dole that extra VIP pass to Tokyo Disney Resort out to me for Christmas, but that wasn't on my mind at the moment.My favorite tennis player growing up was Pete Sampras because of his booming serve and penchant for winning what felt like every grand slam. In reality, I had a so-so serve (nothing threatening) and my biggest weapon was and is my forehand. That meant people had to be wary when trying to hit to my right side, which is my forehand side.  
Once the match had gone a little way, I got—or rather, realized—some good news. Two and a half years and counting of Tae Kwon Do training (I was a **bodan**, or unofficial 1st-degree black belt back then) meant I had the speed and stamina to keep up with Yukari. More than my fair share of video games, watching game shows, and academic competition had also done a lot for my reflexes, believe it or not, which was another plus.  
I had a little more power, also because of my Tae Kwon Do training, but Yukari had more technique, which meant she was less prone to unforced errors. She also had the ability to lob, which meant trouble as I liked to rush the net to try to put points away. Fortunately, she didn't have a drop shot at the time, or I would have been dead. It took an awful lot of focus to keep my mistakes down and keep things close.  
After nine tough games, I managed to take advantage of a double fault from Yukari and break her to go up 5-4 and serve for the match. Just as I was about to serve, I saw Nick running over, and I walked over to meet him without leaving the court.  
"Brad creamed Ayako, but I couldn't handle Nozomi and Olivier was just no match for Shiori." He told me. "You gotta beat Yukari, or else the girls one-up us today!"  
"Nothing against them, but not today." I told him, grinning. Looking over, I noticed Yukari talking Shiori and Nozomi on the opposite end, and something told me they were also discussing how the other results affected what she and I were playing for.  
"Show 'em who's boss, Carlo." Nick said, slapping me on the back as the pause ended.  
I got Yukari to 30-30 after some more even battling, and then if only because I got a little lucky, I was then able to do my best Pistol Pete (Mr. Sampras' nickname) impression and put one right down the middle for an ace to set up match point at 40-30.  
That match point developed into a somewhat lengthy rally that had both of us fighting hard, but then Yukari tried hitting one crosscourt towards my right-hand out-of-bounds line.  
Knowing that allowed me to use my best shot, I chased it hard, and again, because of my reflexes, I was able to react quickly enough to Yukari's attempted crosscourt return. Getting there, I focused on turning hard through the ball to keep it in and also on hitting it as hard as I dared with the possibility of hitting it too long.  
Luckily, it was the best shot I hit all day.  
It landed right in the far-right corner on Yukari's side almost a full foot beyond her outstretched racket. Game, set, match, and tie series!  
Realizing that I'd won and what it meant, I pumped my fist and yelled, "Yes!" as my friends whooped and the girls graciously applauded before I came to the net to shake Yukari's hand.  
"Good game." I said. "I needed everything I had to take that one."  
"You too. I'm curious, though…did Nick give you some inside information on me when he was talking to you?" She asked curiously.  
"No." I replied.  
"Really?" She asked.  
"No, really, he didn't." I answered. "I don't lie about that sort of stuff. Shiori didn't let you in on some stuff about me, did she?"  
"No, she didn't." She replied earnestly.

Wednesday's PE class would feature 4-on-4 basketball at the gym-style stadium. Our PE teachers had allowed us to bring their own clothes for this, so the guys and I were wearing Russell Athletic and Nike athletic shorts (mine went down almost to my kneecaps, which was how I like them) and t-shirts featuring our favorite college teams—Duke for me (my shirt was actually the latest national-champion shirt), Wake Forest (Tim Duncan's alma mater) for Olivier, NC State (known in college hoops for Coach "Jimmy V" Valvano, David Thompson, and for two national titles) for Brad, and Michigan State (the only non-ACC school any of us was linked to, another 2-time national champion and Magic Johnson's alma mater) for Nick.  
We four registered as a team, while Shiori had Nozomi, Yukari, and Yukari's good friend Yumi Saotome from Class C, who played girls' hoops for Kirameki. The matchups were announced in such a manner that the next one was announced after the ending of the previous one, with each team getting one game. People thus had some warning that the four of us were going against the girls again, and the buzz was tangible by the time we took the floor. Again, we shook hands and wished each other luck, but didn't say much. My friends have the same competitive mode as me in that we don't talk too much to our opponents before a contest, no matter how well we know them.  
We learned early on that Shiori and company could flat-out **shoot**, but we were able to adjust and limit their chances for the rest of the game. We weren't the best of shooters, but we managed to go inside more often and get high-percentage shots such as layups and short jumpers, in no small part because we knew how to do basket cuts and even set picks here and there. Playing point guard, my favorite position, I also was able to penetrate a number of times to either get a layup or create a chance for Brad, Nick, or Olivier. I was and am no LeBron James or Grayson "The Professor" Boucher (from the AND1 Mixtape streetball tour), but my crossover was good enough to get me space off of whoever was guarding me. It was another tense back-and-forth battle, but when I ran a give-and-go with Nick, jumped leaning in, and knocked down a shot off the glass with 20 seconds to go to put us up by 3, it looked as if we had it in hand.  
This time, though, it was Shiori who had other ideas.  
I was able to come back down to earth fast enough to see Yukari throw the inbounds pass to Nozomi. When it came back in, I also bent over and did something that only my friends and teammates understood: I slapped the floor. Slapping the floor is the signal at Duke meaning "Defense!" and hence is something the players do when they want to buckle down and make a big stop. Looking behind me, I saw the others smiling and emulating the gesture—which was something, considering I was the only Dukie in the group. Feeling psyched at the sight, I smiled at them and focused on defending Shiori, who had taken the ball from Nozomi before the ball crossed the halfcourt line.  
The clock was down to 5 when Yukari passed it to Yumi, who was in the corner behind the three-point line and made as if she was going to shoot but who was close enough to me that I knew I could help Nick, who was guarding her, and put another hand in her face if I leapt towards her. I tried just that, but suddenly, Yumi pulled it back down and tossed it to Shiori…who I had left open outside the arc!  
Realizing my mistake with a thrill of terror, I tried springing back towards her, but she had already caught the ball. She then jumped and took the shot in the same motion, with my hand flashing in front of her half a second after she fired. The buzzer sounded while the ball was still in the air.  
_Swish!_  
Shiori's shot found nothing but nylon. It was the only trey of the game for the girls, but they got it when they needed.  
The quality of the shot—classy—and the fact that it was a buzzer-beater that denied us a win made us laugh—with Shiori and the girls, not at them—as we clutched our heads or bent over and grabbed our shorts. After the shot, Shiori had wheeled jubilantly towards the opposite end with Nozomi, Yukari, and Yumi in hot pursuit—not much unlike Duke after Christian Laettner hit that legendary shot to beat Kentucky in 1992, I noted with a smile.  
"Overtime?" I asked just after we shook hands with smiles back on our faces.  
"I think class is about to end, so I'm afraid not." Shiori said.  
"Nice shot." I said, partly because I would have wanted to be genteel even if she wasn't my girlfriend.  
"Thanks, but you're a statistician. That means you probably know that was the only three we had the whole game." She replied.  
"Well, wherever our defense gave you room, you made us pay for it…"

There was one more potential battle coming up that week. On Thursday, because exams were coming up in just a week, we would be having a lightning-round style academic competition in each class. The rules were simple: buzz in as soon as you knew the answer and try to score. If a team missed, the other team had a chance to answer and take the point. It looked to be the most intense battle yet, because not only would we be battling our classmates to be No. 1 in Class A, but this was an area where all four of us had skills—where all of us could "ball", so to speak. And as if that weren't enough, because we would be on a field trip the next day, whoever got this between us and the girls got the last laugh. And even though both the guys and I and Shiori and the girls were friends and romantically involved with each other in four cases, neither of our gender groups wanted to be the group without that last laugh.  
That morning, I reached the subway station that Shiori and I took to get to Kirameki and found the three others waiting for me. Because of the station's location, it would later become a rendezvous point for us when we wanted to meet up and head onto campus together for whatever reason.  
Knowing I had to show the face the team needed to see, as Duke's very own men's hoops coach Mike Krzyzewski (better known perhaps as "Coach K") would have put it, I grinned broadly and said, "Let's get 'em."  
They returned the grin, and Nick added, "Let's kick some butt today." We chuckled a little bit and then headed below street level.  
Once we were off the train and just off campus, we walked onto it with a "business walk", if you know what I'm talking about. Some of our classmates were outside to wish us luck. We were waving and smiling at them like we were Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns about to show their stuff on the football field. Against USC in the Rose Bowl? I don't mean to be conceited, but I think that's a solid "Yes" because of who Shiori was likely to be having as teammates, and given that, I think we did a good job of staying loose but not too loose. The previous night, the four of us had held a meeting about the impending academic competition duel, and I had told them that Shiori would likely be working alongside two fellow Academic Team regulars in Megumi, the second-ranked girl in the grade behind Shiori, and Mio Kisaragi, the green-haired and bespectacled resident English specialist of our grade. On top of that, she was also likely to have Saki—who had also been impressing academically—as a teammate.  
One fellow freshman, Toshio Hanzo, had brought a boombox was playing Snoop Dogg's Gin And Juice as we came up to the door. "I thought it'd make good entrance music for the four of you." He told us.  
We grinned at him and I thanked us just as we heard the lines "Rollin' down the street, smoking Indo, sippin' on gin and juice…"  
"Laid back, with my mind on my money and my money on my mind!" We finished, even Brad—who, remember, is definitely more of a rock guy than a rap guy. By the way, we knew how that part went because we had gladly digested that line after seeing a snippet or two of Down To Earth.  
Reaching the door, I half-yanked the door open as my way of saying again, "Let's do this!" before holding it open for the others.  
All through class that day, even though the tournaments did not start until the afternoon, as part of something that the guys and I had decided on, we kept our eyes forward for the most part and off the girls. The message was sent: if only temporarily, friendship and country took precedence over romance. 

There were 24 people in freshman Class A, which meant that there were six four-person teams. Our three afternoon teachers—Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Arimoto, and Mrs. Tezuka—had decided to split us into two groups of three, with the top two in each group after round-robin play advancing to the semis. As it turned out, our two teams were drawn into different groups.  
In Group A, Shiori, Megumi, Mio, and Saki blew through their two matches, including their game against a quartet captained by Rei Ijuin, the principal's grandchild. Meanwhile, Group B didn't seem to offer too much resistance for us as we cruised past the other two teams in our group.  
Neither of our two teams broke stride in the semis. Shiori and her teammates blasted the second-place team from our group, and then, as Nick later put it, "we busted a can of whoop-A on Rei's team."  
As anticipated, the Class A championship would be the third battle of the week between the Kirameki female A-list and the American Fantastic Four. If the basketball game on Tuesday was hyped up as an international match in any way, it was nothing compared to how this decisive battle was being promoted in that way.  
"It's all set in the Class A final!" We heard Yoshio calling out from outside during the break between rounds to the other classes. "It's Shiori, Megumi, Mio, and Saki for Japan versus Carlo, Olivier, Nick, and Brad for the United States!"  
We could thus hear some buzz from outside as Mrs. Tezuka, our kind social studies teacher and the official for the finale, ended the break by calling, "All right, it's championship time. Shiori, Carlo…"  
Our two teams purposefully rose as one and then marched just as determinedly, with me and Shiori in the lead, to the front of the classroom as our classmates applauded.  
Once we were up at the front of the classroom, designated as the "in play" area, we shook hands and smiled at each other, not in the least Shiori and me when we shook hands, but once we sat down at the two players' tables in the "in play" area, we put our game faces on.  
Mrs. Tezuka smiled at us and said, "Well, well. For all intents and purposes, this is Japan against the USA. I understand your friends have been looking forward to this—am I right?"  
Our classmates let their assent be heard, I'll tell you that much. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Tezuka had to start speaking again to quiet them down. "Okay, let's get started. Ten minutes on the clock…"  
She set a sizable timer in front of her as she said this, and then said, "And go!"  
I could see everyone tensing up just a bit, and I leaned forward slightly, just as when we played other schools.  
"What is the ratio of the sides in a 30-60-90 triangle?" Mrs. Tezuka asked.  
I buzzed in almost instantaneously. "1 to the square root of 3 to 2." I said quickly but clearly.  
"Correct! Name the three categories of English Renaissance plays."  
Mio beat us to the buzzer that time and said, "Comedies, histories, and tragedies."  
"Correct!"  
The class was asked to be silent, but if they were allowed to make noise over the ten minutes that followed, there would have been an awful lot of gasping, cheering, and tense speech. That was because it was just straight back-and-forth competition in the true sense of the word. By that, I mean that the biggest lead either of our teams had was just **one** point! The drama was ratcheting up because **everyone** was getting correct answers and **nobody** was missing stuff once he or she buzzed in, which meant it was a battle of speed that was growing increasingly tense for us and our classmates with each passing question. What made it even tenser was that with the questions coming one after another, hardly anyone had time to even vent, which meant a lot of emotions got held in. With 10 seconds to go, it was tied yet again at 28 each.  
Even Mrs. Tezuka's voice was becoming more fraught with emotion—in her case, excitement. Her next question was, "Which Polish scientist published the idea that the Sun is the center of the solar system?"  
Saki beat me by about a millisecond—which infuriated me in a sense—and said, "Copernicus!"  
"Correct! Last question: What Japanese general was involved in campaigns during World War II in Singapore and the Philippines?" Mrs. Tezuka was semi-yelling by now.  
This time, I buzzed in before any of the girls moved a muscle. "Tomoyuki Yamashita!" I answered in a yell because of the tension. If I had missed that question, I would have been kicking myself for losing the match because of not being sharp enough when my American nationality **and** Philippine ancestry pinned a "should know" label on it.  
Mrs. Tezuka nodded and said, "Correct!" just as the bell signaling the end of regulation went off. Tied again!  
Knowing we were the ones to rescue ourselves at the last minute that time, I allowed myself to emote a bit—or more than that—and roared **"Yes!"** before high-fiving each of my friends before I asked Mrs. Tezuka, "Overtime?"  
"I'm afraid we don't have time for that." Mrs. Tezuka said, almost ruefully. "I'll have to see what I can do about getting a duplicate plaque made for our other first-place team."  
That was the end of the week in terms of the guys and I going toe-to-toe with the girls. For three days out of four, we had battled hard in both the gym and the classroom—to a complete dead heat—a fact that made me grin as I realized it. Apparently, the same thing was going through the minds of the girls and our classmates, because they—including Shiori, Megumi, Mio, and Saki—were wearing similar expressions for the most part.  
Mrs. Tezuka then asked me, "Carlo, can I speak to you for a moment?"  
I had not given my teachers not too many reasons over that year to get on my case when it came to my conduct, so I walked to the opposite side of the table where she was feeling calm. What she told me, though, set the course for the next day, the most tense Friday of that spring and thus something even more tense than the three days of competition we had just endured.

The next day, we boarded a bullet train out of town for a day-long class trip to Hiroshima, which was meant as both an educational trip and another chance for us to loosen our nerves heading into exams. Every freshman came along, from me and my fellow Class A members to the people in the dregs of the 9th grade. That day thankfully started off very well for the most part, with more than its fair share of fun moments, not in the least because our talk involving the tennis, basketball, and academic competition faceoffs (among other things) with the others, including the girls, was more light-hearted than anything All of us were in good enough spirits by the time the afternoon began—our time for visiting the museums and monuments—everyone was at least awake enough to give very good attention.  
"Whew! This afternoon hasn't been boring to death, but I'm still glad it's the last museum of the day coming up!" Yukari said.  
"Me too!" Yuko Asahina said with a grin. "I forgot…what's the last museum we're visiting, again?"  
That question was answered as we turned a corner just as she finished asking it, and I found my nerves starting to come on and my emotions starting to build up.

**Oh, man. **The voice in my head that sounded that thought was **not** joyful, I'll tell you that much.  
Before us stood the Hiroshima Peace Park, the main memorial for those who had perished when Colonel Paul Tibbets and eight others flew the bomber _Enola Gay_ from Tinian in the Marianas to Hiroshima in August 1945 and dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in the history of warfare, leveling the city and rendering it uninhabitable for years. 100,000 people had died when the bomb exploded and issued its unmistakable mushroom cloud, and 100,000 caught in the blast perished in the weeks immediately afterward of various causes, including shrapnel, burns, and radiation. Translation: It was a place built in memory of the largest tragedy in Japanese history excluding Japan's surrender—a tragedy wrought by the United States.  
The memorial was a tranquil place, but it also stirred up my emotions, and judging from the looks and reactions of my classmates, it was also really stirring up theirs. Shiori's, Yukari's, Ayako's, and Nozomi's faces looked as if clouds had suddenly moved over them and parked there, making them dimmer and more grave, but their reactions weren't the only ones that had me and the others concerned. We could hear silent sobbing coming from in front of us, and up ahead, we saw Mio and Miharu Tatebayashi. Even though their backs were turned to us, we could see that Mio her glasses in her left hand and her right hand at her face and that Miharu had both hands in her face. I also could feel eyes swiveling and moving before locking on us.  
Fortunately, we had a response ready, thanks to an alert Mrs. Tezuka had given me when she held me up after the academic competition championship the previous day.  
"I know you're not just the team leader for you and your friends when you're competing," she had told me, no doubt referencing the article from the fall trimester before adding, "I think you and your friends should know something about the trip to Hiroshima we're taking tomorrow: we're going to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park."  
"I had a feeling that might be coming up." I said gravely.  
Mrs. Tezuka nodded before adding concernedly, "This will be the first time we've had Americans as full-fledged members of the class, so I think you and your friends should prepare yourselves for tomorrow with some responses to potential questions or maybe a good gesture."  
I was still scared at what might occur the next day, but I found enough resolve to nod and say, "I think I'll do that—I'll talk to the guys and see if we can come up with something."  
They were still just outside, so I met them and told them what Mrs. Tezuka had told me. Judging from their reaction, they saw the situation as I did: something extremely delicate. At the ice cream parlor that had become a hangout of ours, especially when we had to think something over together, we put our heads together and came up with something to pull out in case we needed to defuse a situation at the Peace Park. As was the case, we had to pull it out, all right. I looked at Nick, Brad, and Olivier beside me. "Guys?" I asked.  
They looked back and nodded, murmuring "Yeah." Silently and solemnly, Brad set his backpack down and pulled out a folded-up American flag. Stretching it out after zipping up his backpack and shouldering it again, he offered three of the corners to me, Nick, and Olivier, and then he himself held on to one of them. The four of us spread out so that we were holding the flag taut and parallel to the ground but not overstretched and then started moving, walking slowly but purposefully towards the black stone arch set in a planter filled with small white rocks that had some flowers left in front.  
Once we were there, each of us either bent over or kneeled and laid our flag down on the ground in front of the raised area containing the arch. I could hear some gasping behind me as we did so—the Japanese have the same flag etiquette as we do, which means that the national flag is not supposed to touch the ground unless a soldier carrying it falls. But I also knew the way the four of us were behaving was certainly a clear enough indication that this was not a desecration of our flag, but rather our way of paying our respects.Once we came back around, lining up side to side so that the flag was between us and the arch, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind that told me, **It's good that you, Olivier, Nick, and Brad are here doing this.** All four of us were (and of course are) American citizens, but I am Filipino by blood and Olivier is French by blood. I like to think that if ever a Japanese school class that visited the Hiroshima Peace Park had a delegation with representatives for both the Japanese and the Allies, it was ours.  
For about two minutes, we stood there with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, deep in thought. I also found myself saying a silent prayer for those who lost their lives that day and onward because of that bomb.  
"Thank you." I heard Mio's voice behind us. "I'm sorry I'm acting like this…"I was the first to turn around and see that she still had tears coming down her face. I told her, "Don't say that. I'm—or should I say, **we're**—the ones who should be saying we're sorry."

Nick, Brad, and Olivier, who had all turned around by now, nodded.  
"Thanks. It's just…I lost my aunt when I was 10. She became a **hibakusha** (the Japanese term for an A-bomb survivor) when she was just 12. A few years ago, the radiation exposure caught up to her. I know she'd appreciate the four of you paying your respects, though." Mio said, and to our relief, she managed a small smile.  
Miharu was next to approach us with the rest of the class not far behind. Like Mio, she was still crying slightly, but she managed to say, "I know my uncle would like this, too, so, Carlo, Brad, Olivier, Nick, thanks so much. What got Mio's aunt also got him—the radiation catching up. I was 11 when he passed away."  
"Well, in that case, I'm sorry about your uncle too." I said.  
"It's okay. I mean, you weren't on that plane that day, were you?" She asked.  
"Not even in a past life, if I had one." I said, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

We chuckled momentarily before Miharu asked us the day's big question.  
"I don't mean to make you and your friends uncomfortable, but what are your beliefs about the bomb?"  
I thought it over hard for a minute before summoning my strength again and giving my answer, handling my voice as if I was handling a box with "Fragile" stickers all over it.  
"Do I mourn the fact that it helped end World War II and consequently saved possibly hundreds of thousands of American lives by making the invasion of Japan unnecessary?" I asked. "I'd be lying to you if I said I did. But," I added, my tone growing softer, "I do mourn the fact that so many people who had nothing to do with the war—people who never raised a hand against America—perished as a result of what happened here on that day in August 1945. And I can't speak for my friends, but my guess is that their stance here is the same. You know what one of the crewmen on the _Enola Gay_ said when he saw the mushroom cloud and the damage after the bomb was dropped?"  
I heard some people, including Nozomi, Ayako, and Mio, say "No" and saw others, including Shiori, Yukari, and Miharu, shake their heads.  
I knew it was an _Enola Gay_ crewman who had spoken the next five words to come out of my mouth, but I didn't remember his name or his role. I didn't have to remember that it was copilot Bob Lewis, though—all I needed was the quote.  
"'My God, what have we done?'" I said, echoing his words and trying my best to recreate what I imagined would have been his stunned, horrified tone.  
I could tell that that quote had hit home by the reactions of my Japanese classmates. Many were nodding, some including Shiori apparently had tears in their eyes, and there was no trace of resentment to be seen. Mrs. Tezuka, who also saw what happened, would later tell us that we had walked the fine line between being true to our attitude about the bombing and showing concern for our Japanese classmates.  
Nick fervently whispered to me, "**Perfect**, Carlo." He gave me a quick thumbs-up, and I responded with a quick nod, knowing we had done our job.

As the sun set, we were on the train back to Tokyo/Yokohama. I was in the mood for some solitude, so I was sitting alone in a booth listening to a pop/rap/R&B compilation in my CD player. Just as I decided to take a break and take my headphones off, Shiori came over. Her eyes were still shining slightly, but she still managed to smile at me, causing me to smile back.  
"I really appreciate you doing that today." She said earnestly. "Actually, I should say **we** appreciate you doing that today. No American or group of Americans I've ever seen has done that in Hiroshima."  
"Thanks, but it was the least we could do." I replied.  
"That may be true, but you four still really had to be brave to do that." Shiori said.  
"Thanks." I said. "I tell you what, though, thank God for Douglas MacArthur, because I hate to think about what Japan would be like today if it weren't for him."  
My fellow Americans held MacArthur in good regard because of his distinguished service record, but my family and I revere him because of his famous promise of "I shall return" to the Philippines during World War II and the way he fulfilled it. What many don't know is that he's considered a hero not just to the United States and the Philippines, but also, ironically, to Japan. After the war, MacArthur was put in charge of the Allied occupation of Japan and was hence faced with rebuilding the country he had helped bring to its knees. His efforts, as it turned out, were crucial in not only bringing Japan back from its lowest point period, but also in turning Japan from something that looked not much unlike a feudal society in terms of rights and social values into the modern and very vibrant country that it is today.  
We spent a good amount of the train ride back to Yokohama/Tokyo talking about a common hero rather than conflicts. We even were able to share a cool conversation with Mio and Miharu when they came over when we were halfway home. When you're with a person or group you work well with, any conflict whatsoever is followed quickly by a reminder of what brings you together, and this was no exception.**  
Not that I mind…**I thought, with a smile on my face. **Not that I mind at all…**  
To top the day off, I got a cool revelation out of Shiori. When we got off, I quietly asked her, "I don't mean to be selfish, but is it okay if we head out to Disney once the year's over?"  
"Sure!" Shiori answered, smiling and making me smile back again. "And don't worry about being selfish for picking Disney. I forgot to tell you this during Christmas, but I'm a Disney fan too."  
"You don't say!" I said, now smiling even more broadly. 

In the next chapter—"Making Waves":  
Shiori, Nozomi, and Olivier take center stage! With its trio of now-sophomore sensations, Kirameki's swim teams have made it to the Japanese swimming national championships. Are they enough to earn Kirameki the distinction of being best in the land?

Author's Soundtrack Suggestions

**Original Version (released by March 2002)**  
Play—Jennifer Lopez  
This is one of those tunes I like to hear when I'm either watching competitions or actually competing, whether it is friendly or serious. The fact that I have a faster remix from a Philippine R&B/rap compilation from 2001 (with the songs by the original artists) doesn't hurt, either. 

Tears From A Star—Sting  
Good melody, moving lyrics…seven words: perfect for the Hiroshima Peace Park scene.

**Modern Version**  
(Can We Please Have…?) Just A Moment—Nas & Quan  
This is a rap song I don't think a lot of people know about that is nice in its own way. As a matter of fact, I listen to this whenever I want to think about people I've lost, among other things. For example, when I want to reminisce over a couple of uncles of mine in the Philippines on my father's side who passed away within 4 months of each other—one in December 2004 and the other last March. To that end, I can imagine this as well as a song playing during the scene at the Hiroshima Peace Park.


End file.
